Yep, there it is, the first reference to cannabis use by Salvador Ramos, the Texas elementary school killer. In the New York Times.
Took 24 hours, give or take.
And Ms. Rodriguez recalled he would often talk about how much he despised his mother and grandmother, whom he told her did not let him smoke weed or do what he wanted.
Nikolas Cruz, the Florida high school shooter, was a heavy user and told the police detective who interviewed him that he heard voices. Devin Patrick Kelley - who shot up a Texas church and killed 26 people in 2017 before blowing his head off - had THC in his system when he died. (Kelley had anti-anxiety drugs too; a lot of heavy cannabis users wind up using Xanax or Klonopin to try to tamp down their paranoia.) Darrell Brooks Jr., last seen allegedly racing through the Waukesha Christmas Parade, is a self-described stoner.
Meanwhile, cities like Portland, Oregon have suffered an explosion in violence following the legalization of cannabis. Portland had 16 murders in 2013, the year before voters in Oregon approved full legalization. Last year it had 90. It’s on pace to have even more in 2022. It has gone from being one of the safest medium-sized cities in the United States to one of the most dangerous. Denver has seen a similar trend.
Obviously, the legalization of cannabis is not the only or even the main driver of this new American violence wave - broader criminal justice “reform” and the way Democratic politicians have undercut and discouraged the police are probably even larger factors - but its role is increasingly obvious to anyone who cares to look.
Cannabis causes psychosis, and psychosis causes violence.
Alcohol. Aka "ethanol" is naturally occurring in food. In fact, it is part of our culinary practices and has been since human history. A fruit or grain falls to the ground, enzymes turn the starches into sugars and yeast eat the sugars and produce ethanol and other alcohols. Most people can metabolize it fine. Like anything it can be abused.
However, cannabis has a psychotic effect for heavy and long-term users. It is not a food... it is only a recreational drug. It has some beneficial properties... mostly the CBD... but it is also a dangerous drug at the high concentration levels of THC produced today. I know several young men that have been hospitalized with psychotic issues after heavy and consistent use.
Speaking from observation, smoking too much weed does have a deleterious long term effect on the brain.. the odd spliff is fine, but regular heavy use is best avoided.
To quote you..."false, the majority of long-term heavy users do not experience psychotic effects"..
Duh - we are not talking about the majority here - we are talking about the cases where it DOES induce psychotic issues and those issues turn into violent actions.
You are playing Russian roulette with weed - you don't know if/when your system will react to the cannabis with psychotic behavior. If you are one of those folks - your life is ruined. Now your life can be ruined with Alcohol too, I'm not making a distinction - except that the "rare" psychotic behavior often does express itself in violent and deadly behavior.
remembering that native americans, some eastern euros like serbs and indigenous japanese lack the enzyme to metabolize alcohol, making it addictive, mind-bending and poisonous to the brain.
Went to college with a full blooded Sioux from South Dakota.
I can attest to the above.
It was eye opening how little it took for him to get plastered and at the same time could drink all night unable to stop until the body basically blacked out.
There is no next day with the guys laughing about the events the night before because he do not remember anything that happen the night before...
...and the behavior while drunk goes way beyond what ordinarily occurs when people are intoxicated...
The issue with cannabis gets into so many swampy weeds with agriculture, transport, contamination with other substances, etc, etc it’s simply not a great stabile platform to argue much from. Especially on mental illness. We are suffering a huge on swell of anger and failure to cope. This feeds instability. We have many unstable who are more likely to turn to drugs of all sorts to dull the pain. We have an epidemic of narcissistic personality disorder due to social media selecting for it. We have predatory governments, corporations, institutions feeding off our families and communities. We have an epidemic of mass hysteria and frank stupidity as the information blackout and intense propaganda continue. Wow!
Is that just your expert opinion or do you actually have proof of that claim. I assumed you are an expert but perhaps with your proof of that claim you can verify your expert status as well.
Any good drug will supply the perfect psychic storm to make it more convenient to come face to face with truth. Some will break in the face of this. Erich Fromm had much to say on this. Even laughing gas the dentist provides may trigger this. State Fascism will also trigger this among the severely damaged.
Alcohol is generated by a natural process that is common. Enzymes that convert starches to sugars are generally in and on the fruit, vegetable, grain, etc. This is how a starchy green banana turns yellow and sweet. Yeast are also in abundance everywhere. Cultured yeast is a relatively recent process. Before that the fermentation process was simply to allow the organic substrate to ferment itself with access to the open air. Yes, bacteria and molds can also do that job... in some cases both the enzymatic breakdown of starches and the conversion of the sugars into alcohol. Koji mold for example is uses in many Asian rice alcohol beverages. Lactobacillus is a common bacteria used in cheese making. These are all naturally occurring and part of the natural lifecycle of almost all non-meat food products.
Yes, alcohol exists naturally in food. If you have a fruit tree, pick up a very ripe fruit from the ground after it falls from the tree and eat it. You will generally be consuming alcohol.
Alcohol is produced when produce ferments on the ground, like blueberries. I witnessed drunk Cedar Waxwings on Gregory Bald in the Smokys in the 90's. We process it further to boast concentrations past the point that it would kill the yeasts.
I agree with most of your comment, except "its only a recreational drug". I believe there's no such thing as a recreational drug! All drugs are for sick people!
Interesting perspective. Not sure I wrap my head around that given the history of drugs being consumed for recreational purposes. Steven Tyler just admitted to having spent $6 million on cocaine.
You can't generalise everyone is different and react to things differently. If everything was so cut and dried wouldn't health be so much easier to work out and I imagine doctors would have all the answers which they don't by a long way.
it is suicide to intimacy with yourself and being in touch with your heart. Total segway away from connection with others on any level of intimacy or truth. I can see it clearly and I still use alcohol knowing full well that it has 0% help or usefullness to my spirit life. Never used pot more than 10x and it was always b/c I was inebriated on alcohol or I never would have done it. Same thing with unprotected sex! Always drunk. There's no fixing it looking at all of the negative, we can only get into the Word and seek God daily. It is the empty void and lack of relationship knowledge of God that drives ppl to act like satan.
Boy howdy, & Praise Jesus. All things exist to glorify the Son of God! Return to The Word would alleviate all worries & anxieties at fraction of the cost of some meds. Can’t make cabbage when copy right laws aren’t in our favor. But the Word will not return void! Isa 55:11
No prude, me. Live and let live I say. But I see what drugs do to people and find it sad that they have so little of interest to do that they derive entertainment from poisoning themselves.
I see lots of people who vigorously defend their drug habits as “harmless fun”. They’re usually the ones who know the harm they are doing to themselves but childishly think that by pretending they’re not will make it so.
This is the definition of prude: Knowing everything, reading minds, a feeling of superiority for no reason. People smoke pot to keep people like you away.
I say calling people prudes is. Is it are or are it is? I am now a prude, but once had a partying, fun filled alcohol and drug fueled life of debauchery. That was hollow. I am now filled by the Grace of GOD. Free yourself. JESUS is knocking. Will you answer and let Him in?
Tea and coffee are drugs. I know fora fact that ten cups of strong coffee turn anyone into a crazy wide-eyed loon: lets stay calm and keep a sense of perspective.
Yeah, that worked well. He's so toasted, he heard a song and wanted to do a cover of it. The other guys had to tell him that it was them playing the song.
Alcohol is a downer. However, there is evidence that cannabis use can exacerbate underlying mental issues, in particular bipolar issues. Legalizing marijuana may create a major problem for the US.
Alex is wrong and has been readng propaganda. Pot is good for everyone. The US Dept of Health even has a patent for pot, Pat No. 6630507, saying its a neuroprotectant and antioxidant. Everyone needs neuroprotection and more antioxidants even just for all the poisons government puts in the air, food, water and injections. Th most successful people use pot daily, as do the most unsuccessful.
People smoke pot, legal or not and it's decriminalized almost everywhere. So legalization is meaningless. This whole post hoc logic argument is stupid because pot use has been rampant for many years while it's been illegal.
And we've had an increase in mental health issues... I know there's lots of factors involved but cannabis use could be one, particularly in people with a genetic propensity for mental health issues. .
I have three kids with bipolar disorder and one had been diagnosed schizophrenic. He was the one most negatively affected by pot but the real issue for them isn't pot, it's stimulants. They all want the stimulants because of the dopamine. It's what bipolar people seem to gravitate toward, that which will produce dopamine. Cigarettes are a problem with all three. The youngest recently quit smoking and has gone off all stimulants and no longer smokes pot. He went through a full treatment plan that lasted almost a year to get him off meth. That's where the stimulants got him. So my feeling is that pot is the least of the worries but that it certainly may have been a contributor to the overall toxic mix.
My youngest son no longer has the delusional thought process and psychotic behavior because most of that was produced by the stimulants and then the meth. I am way more concerned about that drug than pot or alcohol.
Another bad one that is legal and which my middle daughter has gone completely crazy on is kratom. That stuff has a terrible effect on her, she goes completely batshit crazy on it.
I agree. However, tobacco has also been used for hundreds of years. We strongly discourage it in this country and highlight all the negative health effects. We could do the same with marijuana, but people enjoy marijuana so they resist any criticism and defend its use.
You know they could open up cultivation and the strength would go down along with the price. The stuff does mess up your head. I know frompersonal experience.
Not everyone who drinks gets drunk. I never smoked any pot I would buy that didn't have me in lala land in a few minutes. I think it doesn't allow many people to solve their problems and problems make people angry.
Stop with the straw man argument. That’s like saying beating your spouse is bad, and responding “let’s talk about how beating your kids is bad.” Two destructive habits don’t negate each other as worthy of discussion, and addiction, like violence, takes more than one form.
The problem with this argument is also that we DO warn kids from a young age about alcoholism. Alcoholism is destructive and lends itself towards domestic abuse, child abuse, and even correlated to porn addictions.
We DO NOT warn our kids about pot addictions - which often leads to laziness, celibacy, and detachment issues at best, and poor mental health desensitized to humanity in the extremes.
My father’s parents were poor, abusive alcoholics. The cops were at their house numerous times a week. He graduated at 17 and immediately left for Marine corp boot camp and Vietnam. He carries more survivors guilt from leaving his little siblings in that home (and he has it from both). Growing up my parents seldom drank in front of my brother and I, or much at all (they’ve caught up as empty nesters 😂), and taught us the warning signs for alcoholism from the time we were toddlers.
Conversely, my mom’s siblings are 80-year old pot heads. 25% of their children became heroine addicts and another 25% haven’t had real jobs 4-5 decades into life. They all had weird sex issues and 1 divorce from porn addiction. Despite great careers (including as a physician) they are around 80 and completely broke because of poor decision making and inability to plan long term.
While I’ve usually steered clear of pot, even in my wild party days, because I noticed the correlation even as a kid between their terrible mental health/ immature decision making, never once did my parents harp on the issues associated with pot. They didn’t bat an eye when they did catch me smoking pot at 14. I definitely didn’t steer clear of drugs and alcohol in my party days, but it was shortly after I tried pot a few times at 14 that I connected the dots between my very misguided extended family and their pot habits.
It’s not about “which is worse.” That is very dependent on the individual. It IS sn issue that people act like pot is “no big deal” and any pushback is met with straw man arguments about alcohol. Legal or not, the excessive consumption of either destroys lives, families, futures, mental health and relationships. Stop pretending like the harms of alcohol that we often discuss are justification to deflect from conversations about the harms from pot. Denial doesn’t change reality.
This is very good and your words are strong medicine. Strawman arguments about comparing alcohol use really resonated with me. The pro-pot crowd is a club, and they are always trying to recruit new members, including myself. I think the THC deceives its users into thinking they are someone they are not and their arguments are mostly weak intellectually. Take the ultimate pothead poster boy, Joe Rogan. He and all his MMA buddies all use THC before fights and they say it improves their abilities. I like Joe but his skills of debate, especially about pot use are weak minded. And by the way I'm intimately acquainted with 2 young men who have spent time in a psych ward due to already existing mental issues and mega pot consumption on top of that. But the pro pot crowd doesn't see any problems here with adolescents consuming today's high THC weed. To quote Levon Helm playing the old sniper back in the woods (Shooter) , "Things aren't always what they seem are they gunnie?"
Does anyone forget these young kids are doped, drugged and vaxxed up, eating genetically modified fake foods and literally learning everything wrong to do in life???
A strawman argument misrepresents the other side's argument to make arguing against it easier. A tu quoque is "whataboutism". People saying "what about alcohol?" are making a tu quoque argument.
That’s like saying “ Reefer Madness!” as a response to this higher THC plant that’s selling now. Absolute ignorance at its best. Alcohol is to today’s pot, like Tylenol is to Fentanyl. Yah, there’s higher doses of Tylenol, even prescription, but it doesn’t touch the effects of Fentanyl. Plus, it hasn’t been studied long term because people are dying! Or we can just ignore this connection & keep pushing high THC pot to our youth. Let’s just wait & see what happens. Great idea.
I guess if I increased my subscriptions and podcasts like you, I’d never have time to ponder loneliness. There’s more red in this state than you think. BTW, are you paid for your responses? It seems the new trend for Dem.s to troll sites & get paid. Good for you. 👍
He argues with everyone throughout this thread and is an admitted stoner. That's why he is defensive of anything negative said about marijuana. His argument? He smokes it and even though he gets "amnesia" once in a while, it hasn't made him psychotic. Case closed.
Only a few go through each day drunk. Many MJ users dose themselves every hour or less from Wake and bake, to Put me to sleep. That is addiction, and the THC stays in the body for a very long time even after you quit.
98% seems exaggerated but drinking like you lay out is definitely the healthy way to do it. People drink all the time in France and starting young. But it is small amounts with meals and it seems to have no ill effects. Maybe even good ones.
must agree with you this time Elagabalus... if it were 98% then there wouldn't be so many bars and dives out there that don't server food but dish out the booze.
Yep. Alcohol is responsible for how many deaths, broken homes, medical costs, etc? Not to mention it affects EVERY cell in our bodies, so probably the worst drug put there overall. Bern arrested twice in my early life, both were in a drunken rage. Since my last arrest in 85 I haven't touched the shit. Made the front page of both the new haven times and Bridgeport Post due to the injuries I caused the guy that started it.
Oh, jury, NOT GUILTY on all charges thankfully. Again the booze or I woulda laughed at the jerk and walked away.
Your escapade didn't make the New Haven Register? 😝 Just teasing. I used to live 20 minutes from New Haven. Born and raised in CT, couldn't afford to retire there. Congrats on your sobriety.
Like it or not, alcohol is part of our diet and our culture, and always has been. It's never going away and it never will. Moreover, unlike marijuana, alcohol is easily metabolized and doesn't stay in your system affecting your judgment and perceptions of the world for over 48 hours
If the prohibition Karen's had existed during Medieval times, humans would likely be extinct as the discovery of alcohol sanitizing water would not been put to use.
but nobody is telling youth and people alcohol is safe and no big deal. the awareness is out
but to be honest alcohol and guns have been around forever you know what’s new is the anti-depressant the anti-anxiety combined with increased marijuana use I guarantee you this is the biggest problem combined with broken families isolation depression in general kids should be out playing they should be playing sports exercising not being put on prescribed drugs that aren’t even tested on people under 18 to begin with. and it’s the increase in the THC with the new wave pot shops and available marijuana that’s the problem people figure it out it’s causing psychosis and violence like no other you’re the one saying weed mellows people out that’s why we’ve got to get the word out that’s not true anymore that it’s no longer 8% THC it’s up to 80% in some cases with oils and vapes
Agree, it’s all bad. Definitely a combination of abuse in different areas. Mental health is a huge challenge, especially for parents, and prescribing physicians. It’s easy to say “ get your kids into sports, let them play outside,” when reality is that parents work a lot and kids unattended for too long create a problem. It’s just reality. And gov. is moving to approve pot nationally. That only increases black market because of lower prices. Mix in the fentanyl issue & our kids are looking at some serious hardship. Maybe not all that try it, but 1/6 will develop psychosis from heavy pot use. Our country is already struggling to keep our kids in school & succeed.
The only way to win this is to get the kids to understand they’re being “played”. Their addiction for profit pawns & their money is lining pockets of uncaring souls by using pot, vapes, & edibles w/ high THC. Plus, the regulations with cannabis growers & pesticides is a joke. They are basically self- governing. We are understaffed in Wa. & probably everywhere else in this industry. Decriminalizing is also opening door for more black market. Look at Cali. They can’t close fake stores fast enough to keep up w/ new ones popping up. They don’t even have to sell on the streets anymore. It’s a mess. Colorado is best state for documenting their downfall. More crime, more homeless, more traffic fatalities, more kids addicted, more negative everything since pot was approved. Coincidence? ALL of it? That’s not what residents there say. Not even close.
I find it incomprehensible that whilst millions of people use alcohol responsibly, in the US you can drive a car, get married, become a parent and everything else grown ups do BUT you can't drink alcohol until twenty-one!
We humans ENJOY being stimulated with stuff so what else are the kids going to do but - drugs?
Prohibition was GREAT for organised crime - seems the current policy is still working, especially for the young.
Many things in life are bad for us in excess (tobacco, food, sex, gambling, power...) whilst often a little of what you fancy does you good, physically and mentally.
Whatever subject you can think of there will always be a minority who respond badly, so should we all do absolutely nothing at all, just in case?
I do think prohibitions tend to make problems worse. The part I’m concerned about is the lack of education, or outright encouraging destructive behaviors. This applies to all the things you mention - drugs, alcohol, sex, food, gambling, tobacco, power. In the US we do a pretty good job of acknowledging tobacco and, for adults alcohol, and even gambling. In Europe kids are taught responsible alcohol habits from a young age, and because access is always there, being the driver or only drinking a reasonable amount is easier - there will still be alcohol tomorrow if your 16 or 18.
We do a horrendous job of the others here. Obese women are on the pages of every fitness magazine and pointing out being obese is not healthy results in hostile accusations of “fat shaming.” We are sexualizing little kids, detaching them from reality, pushing “affirmative care” which is a gentler way of saying child sterilization and genital mutilation, discouraging healthy committed sexual relationships while encouraging teenagers to watch a bunch of porn with all its violence and unrealistic approach to sex.
With pot we don’t educate, we present it as a “better” alternative to alcohol (which it’s not). Many literally believe there is no downside to daily consumption of weed or edibles.
We shouldn’t do nothing, but we should stop approaching every destructive behavior or habit as falling into some good v evil category. It detached people from reality and sends them into spirals of denial about cause and effect. This applies to dangerous big pharma subscription plans as well.
By science we know that the frontal lobe of young people does not fully develop until after the teenage years. The frontal lobes is responsible for reason and decision-making. The lack of a fully developed frontal lobe is why 20-something people make great soldiers but it takes 30 and 40-something people to make effective senior officers.
For this reason I am not in favor of the drinking age being lowered. And I would prefer that the voting age also be raised to 21.
True Frank. But what evidence is there that having a beer as a teen causes any lasting or negative effect on the brain? We are pretty resilliant.
And as for voting, most people do not have a Scooby Doo about what they are voting for! If it made any difference at all to the real powers it would matter! It doesn't, so they allow it, as a fig leaf to give the illusion we are in charge. We're not!
Alcohol. Aka "ethanol" is naturally occurring in food. In fact, it is part of our culinary practices and has been since human history. A fruit or grain falls to the ground, enzymes turn the starches into sugars and yeast eat the sugars and produce ethanol and other alcohols. Most people can metabolize it fine. Like anything it can be abused.
However, cannabis has a psychotic effect for heavy and long-term users. It is not a food... it is only a recreational drug. It has some beneficial properties... mostly the CBD... but it is also a dangerous drug at the high concentration levels of THC produced today. I know several young men that have been hospitalized with psychotic issues after heavy and consistent use.
I spent the last 6 years of my police career as a homicide detective where I was the lead investigator or assisting on close to a hundred homicides, countless suicides and accidental overdose deaths. In the homicides, most victims and suspects were black males in their teens and early twenties. The most common cultural trait among the majority of the cases was heavy marijuana use. In many of the cases the suspects admitted during interviews that they had just "smoked a blunt" (a blunt is a tobacco cigar wrapper stuffed with marijuana) before the murder occurred. Alcohol use is also prevalent, but the daily, continuous use of marijuana is ubiquitous in black gang culture. I have not read Alex's book, but based upon my personal experience, I find correlation and causation.
Can you elaborate? Do we know when he started on drugs, what age? His mother apparently has been using them for a long time, so wouldn't surprise he started at a young age. One report mentioned a middle school friend who said he was a nice young man until eighth grade, when he changed-- usually a tell-tale sign of drug use.
Others were saying he was getting into fights since middle school and he was bullied for a lisp. In short, he was never properly socialized. That seems like more of an obvious contributor than he smoked weed.
Did you miss the point entirely about it being a larger contributing factor than smoking weed? When was the last time the popular kid shot up a school? I would bet you 1000 bucks right now 95% of people could pick mass shooters out of a lineup with perfect accuracy... Weed smokers, not so much....
Further to the point, I bet every popular kid at the HS he went to has smoked weed. Yet it just happened to be the weird as fuck kid who was socially outcast who shot up a school.
I’ve been fortunate to never have a strong craving or addiction to drugs/alcohol. My personal experience with cannabis is hyper-paranoia, anxiety, coupled with a foul mood. Obviously many people have a different experience, however I can’t believe that these are beneficial in anyway. I do not think it helps cognitive ability, motivation, ambition, physical training. People like to do it so make it more available, period. Unfortunately I do think pot had a direct impact on his actions. Psychologically unstable mixed with cannabis can spell trouble.
So now because of this evil dude, we have to give up guns and the herb?? Everyone's chemistry is different and yours did not respond well to the type you consumed. There are many different cultivars that have a multitude of terpine and cannabinoid profiles which affects everyone differently. Just because this kid had it in his system, didn't mean it caused the event. His mental health or spiritual take over from a demonic being would be my first choice. Get to the root of the issue.
Yet: All you presented were anecdotes. Spooner MD Makes a fair point. Presumably, in your book you present the data and metadata? Deeply explore it?
PS: Many if these shootings have happened in the morning. Therefore we should ban school before noon. That’s the kind of idea mere anecdotal evidence produces. Anecdotes should be used to create hypotheses to explore, which MAY result in solid evidence.
Because reality exists for those who enjoy pot, and have with so many others, and not once seen it. But we see it routinely after friends drink alcohol. And we see lots of depressed and anxious children because we've created a world of anti-liberty, never-ending wars and violence done to "protect our interests" in other people's countries, and use debt and inflation to rob us of our wealth, our prior desire to be charitable rather than dependent on government handouts, etc.
alcohol makes people do bad things and it still legal? the law was not implemented to put people in boxes so they cant hurt themselves. its not even plausible to put people in prison for using plants. in fact its a waste of money. give me any possible way for police to stop people from using plants and ill retract my statements. ok law cuck
Well I personally don't have to read the book because I have seen it first hand myself. Its a drug and just like any drug there are positive and negative aspects. The LD50 for cannabis is exceptionally high (Benno Hartung et al. (2014) report that the lethal half dose (LD50) for THC in humans is estimated to be around 30 mg/kg)
I still think it should be federally legal for informed consenting adults, nothing in the constitution about what people are and are not allowed to consume. This power is reserved to the states, or the people.
This is the same argument at the core of vax mandates: you either own your person or you are property of the state. And don't even public health me; if that was the case cigarettes would have been banned 30 or more years ago. And that's without starting in on the damage Alcohol abuse causes, or prescription painkillers.
Yet you don't present any. A reason to trust, e.g. John Thompson (who I don't know) over you. I'm *asking* for a data, and yet I'm insulted and accused of 5 things including *ignoring* it. Batty arguments out bullshitters. Their credibility is a wet patty.
“Studying this relationship for 40 years”? So you’re saying there is a direct relationship to the smoking of cannabis and the killing of individuals? This board-certified neurologist would love to read a couple of the papers that would support your contention.
Well, as a psychiatry provider, working in the prison, This board certified gal can tell you there is a very direct link to drugs and crimes to include murder. There would be nare be a need for prisons if drugs were eradicated. People are dangerous on drugs and it changes the brain..not talking occasional use. Try the once great state of Oregon..now a disaster, crime increased. Mostly drugs related.
Alex, usually I appreciate your critical thinking skills. In this case they are lacking. I spent a twenty-six-year career as a mental health professional. I helped care for many thousands of mentally ill patients. Not one of them was ever diagnosed with a cannabis induced psychosis. At worst some previously diagnosed psychotic patients were noted to have poor reactions to smoking cannabis, but this was similar to the poor results from consuming alcohol. Interesting how you will dismiss studies that show glowing results for mRNA vaccines but seem eager to accept these studies to which you now refer. They are at odds with the numerous studies that do not lead to this conclusion. A logical conclusion from those who understand mental illness is that the mentally ill nearly universally have a tendency to self-medicate, which raises the question whether the cannabis led to the psychosis or was the individual's way of dealing with a pre-existing underlying psychosis. Just blaming the pot is far too simplistic and is a hallmark of the misinformed or the idealogue.
Anyone rational enough to reject this Reefer Madness Redux should check LewRockwell.com today.
Richard White points out the unconstitutional and evil intent of prohibition of substances, and the historic disasters that result from such totalitarian crapola.
Did you know that in 17th century Constantinople a second offense for coffee possession earned a Death Sentence?
Here is a clue for everyone: regardless if it is Pot or actual narcotics, no one's usage is any of your concern. Mind your own business.
More Americans died last year from Fentanyl than in the entire Viet Nam. conflict.
Rather than seek a return to the Golden Years of Reefer Madness when one could spend years in prison for smoking a green cigarette instead of a brown one, why not do something positive for America and vote the sick and twisted Leftys that are destroying our country with Pharma and Marxism?
Amazing to me that anyone aware enough to read Substack doesn't know all this unadulterated crapola about pot is just distraction from the reality that the common denominator in these shootings is psychiatric drugging, and NOT pot smoking..
I have known pot smokers since I was a teen, I am 66 now, and I have yet to meet my first pot freak out.
It's possible to get way too high on any intoxicant, but it is not a significant problem, it is a significant distraction.
Such boneheaded ignorance. The " Social Costs" come from criminalization, and no, there is no point at which your inability to mind your own business becomes a virtue.
People steal to support their habit because criminalization supports 20,000 percent mark ups for the criminal, who is encouraged by the obscene overvaluation to adulterate and create increasingly addictive versions like Crack and Fentanyl, and the overdoses that inevitably follow when drugs are insufficiently adulterated and users take their regular dose which is really many times the normal dose.
It will be a boon to mankind if people like you ever learn to clean up your own backyard.
There is no point at which your inability to mind your own business becomes a virtue, regardless of your self righteous self delusion.
Well, that does not seem to be the case as decriminalization data is rolling in. https://www.westernjournal.com/state-officials-admit-drug-decriminalization-massive-failure-overdoses-increasing-drastic-rates/. If society wants to limit something it should first ridicule it, then shame it, then make a law against it if the first two do not work. Legalizing something harmful always increases it. Increases in pot use are also fueling the woke nightmare because very liberal people, many of whom are mentally ill already are much more likely to abuse cannabis. The social costs from pot use are harming my family.
Yes. My comments said similar stuff but was not so eloquent. I did provide a link to another substack writer who said very similar things as you do. Thanks for speaking out.
You're welcome, Greg. I don't often comment anymore as too many seek to only foist their views on others without actually listening to other's points of view. But the undercurrent of rather foolish noise attempting to link the recent shooter to cannabis use as a source of causality has prompted my response. This person obviously had far deeper problems than an affinity for smoke. To suggest otherwise is nothing short of absurd and has zero consensus within the scientific or medical communities.
I did not say that I believed these glowing results, simply pointed out that Alex was touting some studies while harpooning others. I am a very big skeptic of mRNA vaccines until they have been furthered tested and shown to be safe in reality and not only in the land of wishing.
The simple fact you did not understand the article you attacked. he had to use small words in his reply to maybe get you to understand what he was actually saying. And then your continued use of your "pop quiz". Annoying to say the least.
Since the 70's, psychiatrists have opined of a connection between pot and psychoses. The limited explanation was that it was thought to induce psychosis is susceptible persons. I witnessed a psychotic break in a person who was smoking to excess when I was 21. Maybe the street pot was laced with a hallucinagenic.
Amazing how you punch drinkers always come back to a useless shot that is not a vaccination. You have no idea what these kids are smoking today for THC. Maybe you should get another booster OR educate yourself on what the professionals are saying.
You have less than no idea what I know. You also aren't even intelligent enough to read through an entire thread before making a fool out of yourself. Nowhere in my comment did I endorse the jab, and in a subsequent comment I clarified for another with similar reading comprehension deficiencies to yourself, not that it was necessary for anyone with even average English skills.
You are quite incapable of incurring any wrath from me with your feeble taunts. My career helped many thousands of the most hurting and forgotten in society, with hardly a word of thanks from any in "our country" to those of us who served in one of the toughest fields on Earth.
I suppose if you're a sativa fan, then you might argue that case. But there is not a definitive "best" strain. That completely depends on the individual and how that person reacts to the unique compound signature of each strain. Sour Diesel is good, GMO is better. But that is completely subjective.
Alex makes s big to do over NYT removing the unproven pot claim. That might have something to do with the shooters grandfather's insistence that as a convicted drug felon, he knows what it looks like and his grandson was not a pothead.
The universal common denominator of mass shooters is Shrink Dope, not weed.
That is where the real devastation comes from.
Ever heard a preacher lie and say smoking weed is sorcery?
Sorcery is using drugs to control someone else, i.e. Shrink Dope.
I am also a mental health professional, since 1989. I have seen a gradual shift in how doctors and therapists perceive marijuana use from problem behavior to normalization. This occurs with many social maladies in our do your own thing culture. Doctors aren't going to diagnose marijuana induced psychosis because it requires one to presume linear causality. I would never make such a diagnosis myself. I have seen dozens of teens over the years that got messed up from pot and they were always also caught up in a myriad of other problems. Some of those kids had psychotic episodes. Almost all of the teens with these kind of drug and behavioral problems had marijuana use in their repertoires. We treat the whole person and the family from the perspective of multi-causality, so I believe this OP has offered a red herring argument.
I recently had a grandparent sharing her medical pot with her grandchild who later stole it and brought it to school via brownies that got people sick. I had a guy with long term a-motivational syndrome that was affected by pot and I found out his enabling parent was using with him then complaining the guy would not do anything. The parent had a "It's just marijuana" attitude he brought with him from his 1970's lifestyle. Unfortunately, that attitude has now permeated the culture. I had a young guy, reclusive and abusive toward him mom, using pot at home because mom was liberal and thought it was "just pot".
I did not know Alex was a cannabis realist until I read this article. I do know he is a narrative buster. Thankfully there are a few left.
1. Did they run double blind control trials to check if administering THC makes people *commit crimes*?
2. Did they control the amount of drug intake in both arms 24h/day?
(and just to clarify, I am only curious: Even if they did, there is no moral justification to criminalize pre crime. So there is no moral justification to criminalize drugs. *ANY* drugs.)
Try working in mental health in Oregon and see the effects of drug use. It is so horrific there no one can even tolerate it. If you don't think heroin and meth should be criminalized, your opinion, but a very wrong one.
I am not saying that drugs are good or advisable. I don't even do drugs. All I am saying is that it requires an abject amount of authoritarianism to send the police to possibly kill other adults just because these other adults chose to consume a given substance that a "know-all" little tyrant does not like. My point is: Who are you to tell other people how to live their own lives?
I'm sorry. I'm not impressed. We just finished with a bunch of people telling us to believe them about Covid because they are EXPERTS. And now there's a new claim to expertise based on nothing that I can see.
I do mentally challenging work in math, physics and computers. I have smoked for many years. Strangely my abilities have increased substantially as I age, when normally these abilities degrade with age. Why should I throw away my personal experience because somebody that makes money saying pot is bad says POT IS BAD.
We've all been here before. At least include a link to a paper, assuming you read any of those.
Either you smoke occasionally which is not what most people would talk about when they are talking about the disaster of the drug culture. Or your brain believes it is doing well when it is not, which is the allure or one could say trickery of drugs. Hmm maybe your skills are enhanced because you have expericence. I work with chronic drug users the observe the effects on the brain all day. I attempt to really make a difference but once those drugs get hold, not much helps as one could see with the current situation. Intelligence does not need a "paper" for everything. Defending MJ is concerning. I drink wine sometimes. Do I know it can be bad. Absolutely, can't defend it. Prison is full of alcohol, cannabis addicts and by far the worst Heroin and meth. But with all due respect, if it is okay for you and you are doing well , then be okay with that. It is not okay for alot of other folks. Same with alcohol. No defending meth and heroin ever, way too addictive..way too much death and destruction. :)
I think practice has a good deal to do with being able to smoke and still do intellectual work. I didn't smoke in high school which is where I learned the basis for all these skills. I wouldn't recommend smoking for a high schooler who wants to learn.
For me, the main side effect of pot is a kind of amnesia while high. If you keep your train of thought you can think well. But it is easy to forget what you were doing, so having a reminder on paper definitely is helpful.
But what concerns me is all this judgmentalism about other people's lives. I have no problem that people make different decisions than me. I don't need to judge them. I have my own life and my own interests that satisfy me. I prefer to support other people in their endeavors. I only critique in urgent situations or when asked.
The French essayist Montaigne had a great slogan: "What do I know about it?" In fact, he was very well educated and he knew a lot. But he kept his humility.
Interesting. I find both our experiences to be very similar. Your point about keeping one's train of thought is instructive, especially when compared to that of a person imbibing alcohol. I have found that condition causes even greater deficits in concentration.
Agree. I think it is easy to be judgemental and critical and more challenging to think abstractly and ponder where someone else might be coming from. It is likely that judgment often arises from a true desire to help others but may be done incorrently or with arrogance. Of course, we are called on occasion to give judgement or critique and at times, it is surely needed. I do hope that we can all be more supportive to each other in the world. I am constantly working on my attitude and always remember,
William Shakespeare
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool" :)
Lots of different kinds of people smoke weed. Most of the ones I know were not violent and none of them were mass killers. There were some evil fuckers among those people, but it wasn't the weed that made them evil. In fact it was weed that made them tolerable.
That's why I just stopped associating with people that did drugs all together.
Alex, you replied with a logical fallacy called an "appeal to authority." Seriously, please stop writing on topics you don't understand or can't debate directly with data and facts like you did the vax. Novice mistake.
I was a real supporter of Alex initially but as time has gone on he has revealed himself to use the same arguing tactics that the very people he has gone up against use all the time. I am beginning to believe he hasn't come to his views on the pandemic because of some dedication to truth but for some other reason which perhaps I'll never know. He truly isn't committed to truth, honest debate, the constitution, etc. He runs on his emotions more than most men.
The cannabis rationalizers are everywhere. They have an argument for everything. It is in their playbook. "How about alcohol"? "Everybody does it". "It is the only thing that ever helped my seizures". "it is just a plant". "My body my choice". On and on.
Having arguments is good. Do anti-pot people have an argument beyond bias? "Read the book!!" you say. Because you actually don't remember any of it? Nobody has giving an example of a study that shows pot is bad. Nobody has any evidence. So why should people that have years of experience believe you? And the weirdest thing is that people go from criticizing the covid response to doing what they criticize, just this time with pot.
Don't bitch about the cartels... They're risking their livelihood to provide happiness to humanity... It might even be better with them running the show...
Check out the marijuana taxes in Massachusetts...hoo boy.
Yeah. This is one of those touchy subjects. It always makes people really defensive even if you show them there’s a clear link between pot use and schizophrenia. Sure, that’s not everyone, but if they had known there was a fairly strong link to schizophrenia, would they have ever started using?
are these the researchers that say the shots are safe and effective?
just saying this research conflicts with like everyone's life observations. have you ever thought that weed might effect the business model of some other product? who is funding these researchers? what other things have they researched?
i don't know the answers but when someone says something like this i sure have a lots of follow up questions.
As before, I ask you to forward at least 2 peer reviewed articles from NLM that support your supposition: that cannabis directly causes a person to be paranoid leading to murder of others. My argument is simply there are too many variables involved in the paranoid person to single out cannabis as causative.
alex has no evidence to support his claims. He thinks that we trust his opinions because we listen to what he says about vaccines.
What he does not understand is that for vaccines he has the evidence to support his claims. This is why we listen. No one cares about his (or anyone else's) unsubstantiated opinions, really...
A quickie: He believes a unique pathogen with multiple variants is/was causing massive worldwide deaths even tho it was never even isolated and was not even used in the Fake PCR tests. He buys into the viral mumbo jumbo of Big Pharma and thinks smallpox was ended by a "Good" vaccine. and on and on and on...
mRNA deaths? How about tobacco? Should we trust the Government to make our decisions for us or should people just shut the hell up and leave everyone alone?
I'd be curious. I suspect that they have a lot of weak studies with limited results. Studies aren't additive. 10 studies with a probability of .1 are not equivalent to one with p=.01.
There have always been some people who experience paranoia with cannabis usage and paranoia is not, as I understand it, associated with a balanced psyche. I have seen personally, and experienced firsthand, the direct cause and effect of cannabis and paranoia. Maybe it doesn't make every user a psychopath, but one in a hundred is enough to wreak havoc in a community.
No actually I'm talking about people who are not paranoid until they use marijuana. Granted most of them are just paranoid about being busted by the police or their parents etc. But perhaps there are those whose psyches are more delicate, sensitive or fragile and can be damaged to some greater or lesser degree.
Paranoia can definitely be seen with what physicians call cannabis intoxication. Other symptoms can include anxiety, dysphoria, panic, hallucinations, grandiosity, and other signs and symptoms of paranoia. One can also have psychomotor dysfunction and yet not be aware of it. I simply object to the suggestion that cannabis is a cause of paranoia that leads to aggressive behavior that leads to the killing of human beings. Being paranoid is not the same as planning to kill. Psychopaths will kill with or without cannabis. because some psychopaths are found to have cannabis in their bloodstream does not prove cause-and-effect. That is my argument with Mr. Berenson.
Good point! I just recall that on numerous occasions Jordan Peterson relays the statistic that psychopaths (congenital) never really make up more than 4% of a society.
I find it hilarious how people tell well educated people to not confuse correlation and causation. As if nobody has ever considered that. Usually, people who spew out that line are people who are finding reasons to resist the data.
It's hard to accept the data when the data doesn't agree with our preconception, which is one reason people like Fauci, Walensky, Offit and others are refusing to accept the data showing that these covid (non) vaccines are complete and total bullshit.
I certainly agree with your comments about Dr. Fauci. However, it has always puzzled me how even smart people are unwilling to really look into what the root cause was of an important effect. Even smart people can be very loose and undisciplined in their commentary on subjects for which they may have some emotional or political reason for voicing them. I simply ask Mr. Berenson for peer reviewed articles from the national library of medicine that demonstrate clearly an association between cannabis ingestion or inhalation that lead people to paranoia that leads them to kill people. Paranoia does not imply future murder. As I mentioned in another note psychopaths can kill with or without any illicit drug on board. My question regarding the murder of those children is: could he possibly have been a psychopath? That is as reasonable question as claiming that cannabis caused him to kill people.
It’s a viable criticism of Alex’s hypothesis. He’s pointed to psychosis as the driver and named bit 1 of a hundred changes in the past 1-2 decades that may contribute to an increase rate of such. “The data” is epidemiological goo. It is correlative by nature of course. Thus cannot prove causation.
You are well educated so basic principles of correct reasoning dont apply to you? Knowing something in the abstract doesn't mean you apply it, yourself being an example. It is fine by you to make unjustified conclusions when they are YOUR conclusions, eh?
Alex is a well-trained award winning journalist. Use your head. Do you really think that as part of his critical thinking process he wouldn't consider that?
I know I do. It's one of the very first considerations of anyone conducting research. It's not abstract. It's part of the job.
Also, if you are referring to my conclusion that the covid (non) vaccines are not only useless but can come with side effects like death, then I can only say to you (without being able to prove it) that I have spent countless hours studying the topic. IMHO (yes it is my opinion) it is Walensky, Fauci, et al who have lied to you.
Just one piece of evidence among many. This is from the NIH and it was published early on. They knew all along that the non-vaccines were worthless.
I agree the vaccines are worthless. But saying I should believe Alex because of his supposed expertise is just more of the same BS that brought us the vaccine. I think he is wrong about ivermectin too. There are plenty of credentialed people who agree with me on both accounts. But more than that: I have a lifetime of experience with people who smoke pot and Alex apparently doesn't. I am going to believe my experience over the small percentage of studies that show problems with pot.
At the concentrations present in the THC oils available today, you lose receptor specificity for Cannabinoid receptors and receptor occupancy in the brain is going to be very different from that of THC in the weed of yesteryear. That’s my GPCR perspective. There are also studies linking dabbing to psychosis. Remember pretty much all of this type of medicine (linking a drug to an unintended outcome) is correlation to some extent.
My point to Alex was it was inappropriate to directly link cannabis to psychosis to murder of an individual. His book concerns himself with the children and as a board-certified neurologist I would agree entirely that young people should not indulge in cannabis because their brains are not fully developed. Of course, I can’t really prove that Point but it makes sense, it’s intuitively sensible. But premorbid personality coupled with a bad home life, loneliness, can lead to drug abuse, and in rare circumstances lead to psychopathic murder such as in the case at the elementary school. Focusing on drug abuse, as Alex seem to have done, ignores all the other variables that lead to a person to have absolutely no compassion for the lives of others and the willingness to pull the trigger.
Totally agree with you. Your initial comment was just too terse to make that point. I don't think it was Alex's point to make that a firm cause and effect judgment on the Texas shooter, but he also wasn't that clear. I find his books and longer articles are more well thought-out than some of his off-the-cuff substack posts. I don't know where you practice geographically, but if you are near urban California areas like I have been for my entire life, you get a heavy dose of really bone-headed pro-Cannabis arguments. It tends to push me toward a knee-jerk response, too.
You have a doctorate, so don't you know the kind of study that allows one to draw conclusions about causation? It is exactly the type of study used in drug approval: blinded randomized controlled studies. In such a study, correlation can be validly interpreted as causation.
Yes, I do. And that type of study has not been done on psychosis with cannabis. Note that I said UNEXPECTED outcomes. The studies you describe, Elagabalus, are looking at expected outcomes. Toxicity studies do not necessarily look at all possible ill effects, which is why most drugs come with a warning "may cause" followed by a list of possible side effects.
Reefer Madness was all the proof of cause and effect ever needed. The gods have cursed conservatives like Apollo cursed Cassandra: being able to see the future (consequences) and always having to speak the truth but never being believed.
Perhaps you're right about the Cassandra curse but when reefer Madness was produced there was scarcely any cannabis in America at all like what is coming out of grow houses today. That movie was much less prophecy than it was propaganda. Today's cannabis is worlds away more potent than most of what was on the streets in the 1930's -1960's.
That was my internal response at first, too. I thought JW Spooner was just throwing a quick pro-weed response back at Alex, too, but he (she?) did elaborate on his argument later in this thread. I don't think JWS expected the comment to be interpreted the way I and many other people here seemed to interpret it. Turns out it wasn't a stoner stance.
And don't confuse all the THC concentrated variants being developed that alter anyone whose brain hasn't fully developed. The age that we understand brains to develop by is 25. Now, I bet there is a correlation between heavy THC use at an early age, with the ages of the mass shooters. Hmmmm.
LOL. Lies. The Daily Mail is not now publishing the results of DBRCT medical studies. It's a lie to claim there's a study that proves cause and effect. But I think this comment adequately debunks this bit of tabloid (which is not about an RCT at all):
>> This article is absolutely disgusting. "Pioneering research has shown". Are you kidding me? You can't be serious. All of [the patients] are schizophrenic, and it is well known that cannabis and schizophrenia are a disastrous mix. I've witnessed it myself. Is this [not] how autistic children and sciatica patients behave when they have ingested cannabis. You are fowl demons misinforming the British public on a miraculous medicine. Did somebody from Big Pharma pay you? Take it from me, and you shouldn't need to, I'm just an ordinary civilian, but get your heads out of your bum holes and in to the 21st century. Utterly barbaric parasites.
High correlation can mean cause and effect. There's a correlation between high speed and car deaths. Low speed, less deaths. That's cause and effect. Not necessarily the only cause but it impacts the effect.
Correlation CAN mean cause and effect, but it often just means common causes. Or the causation is reversed. Malnutrition in children correlates with broken bones, but neither causes the other. They are both caused by bad parenting. Pot abuse may cause psychosis or PERHAPS people who are beginning to suffer from psychosis may be drawn to overuse pot.
Why do antipot folks seem so grumpy and humorless and angry?
Could not smoking pot lead to violence? I have $10M here for any credentialed scientist who wants to design and run a study guaranteed to give the right results.
Who are you directing this comment to? You have a real issue with conclusion drawing.. You started your attack in response to my comment, which was merely pointing out that we cannot base conclusions regarding the safety of THC on our observations from the past, when concentrations were so much lower that the mechanism of action and sites of action were completely different. I have a very extensive track record in GPCR signaling (Cannabinoid receptors are GPCRs, short for G-protein-coupled receptor). I then pointed out there are some studies linking extremely concentrated THC (like in dabs) to psychosis-so it is not a far-fetched or unsubstantiated theory, and that the cop-out "correlation is not causation" could be applied to a wide variety of medical observations. You seemed to think this was evidence I don't understand drug studies, with which I Iikely have more hands-on experience than you do, and then jumped to this weird attack on an imaginary grumpy "anti-pot" contingent on this thread. You have no freaking idea what my views on cannabis legislation are. But since you assumed, I will correct you. I personally believe much damage was done by the way medical cannabis was slowly legalized as a work-around to recreational legalization. I am not interested in the reasons for taking this approach and who was opposing it because that is tangential to my argument, which is what the result of that workaround was. If cannabis is viewed as simply recreational, like alcohol, it comes with an understanding that it had down sides and should be moderated. Rolling it out as medical, and then having a massive cannabis lobby spew out nonsense about all of its wonders (most of which are not scientifically substantiated-i.e., reducing anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc.) while simultaneously pushing a narrative than the ONLY reason anyone opposed its legalization was because it was associated with minorities and this was a way to throw minorities in jail, led to a generation getting extremely poor information about what the drug actually does and what its dangers actually are. As a result, people wander around thinking it is as safe as water, in any amount, at any concentration, used with any frequency. Many people develop dependence on it, and some do have a range of life-altering negative consequences, from lack of motivation to increased depression to psychosis. I would argue that this would not happen to the same degree if there wasn't immense pressure to suppress any discussion of possible negatives, with most people-as you do here- dismissing those attempting to raise those points as "antipot and humorless" or worse. I think recreational adult-use only, without going through medical first, would have led to fewer problems. I also think that, given it has uses for palliative care, having health insurance covering it for that situation, would be beneficial. I think blithely ignoring any problems associated with THC is uneducated and damaging. I have more information I can provide to you, regarding its actions in the brain and why different preparations lead to actions in different brain regions, with distinct outcomes, if you are interested.
Sorry, I missed this. I am always interested in actual studies.
I was making a general observaion not directed at you, but my eyes do keep floating up to the big block of text you sent. How would YOU characterize it?
It is unfortunate that our responses are atomized. I was on a good thread talking about strenth of dabs and concentrates. I find them too much as do my friends. They aren't social, you are stunned. Maybe this is why I haven't seen pot psychosis in my world.
Correlation is not causation is a cliche, true, but it IS an essential principle of scientific reasoning. It isn't optional. You can only conclude causation from correlation if the experiment is designed for it. In general this is a double blind randomized controlled experiment. However, certain complex time series techniques have been developed to allow conclusions of causation with data that is gathered in the wild..
I know two unrelated women, each with 20 year olds, who went from having "normal" boys to them being diagnosed as schizophrenic overnight. No family history. They both spent multiple stints in mental hospitals. Both exhibited violent behavior and did odd things like drilling a hole through a new laptop because it was spying on them. Both chronic pot smokers through high school and college. Both boys' doctors (incl. one neuro at UCLA) said without a doubt, it was tied to marijuana use. This is brain damage, folks.
The only reason I even know about Alex Berenson and his book in the first place is because of what happened to my then 19 year old son a few years back and my need to find answers. He was dabbing high potency weed for a few weeks and ended up with several stints in emergency rooms and mental hospitals diagnosed with cannabis induced psychosis/schizophrenia. Most frightening time of our lives to see our normal, well rounded productive, athlete son set to to embark on his future with a football scholarship become a violent, psychotic requiring multiple 911 calls to the police to our home because of his violent, erratic behavior. He also exhibited typical psychotic behavior thinking he was getting messages sent to him through the television and the fbi was tracking him and at one point thought he might be Jesus. Emergency room doctors, psychiatrists and police immediately understood the cause but so many others refused to believe it could be caused by harmless marijuana or that it must have been because it was laced or he must have had an underlying mental illness that was bound to manifest itself at some point in his life. Here we are a couple years later and thankfully his life is back on track, he is back in college, back to his normal self with no signs of violent tendencies and no signs of mental illness. Thankfully we had good doctors and mental health support who got the diagnosis right and understood the dangers of marijuana for him in particular but most importantly the experience scared him straight and he himself knows to stay away from that dangerous drug. Sadly though the person who referred me to Alex's book did not have the benefit of a support system that understood the dangers of marijuana to adolescents and young men and did not have the same good outcome. Her 24 year old son smoked his medically prescribed marijuana, became psychotic and violent and for no reason bludgeoned his uncle with a hammer in the middle of the night causing him to lose an eye. Her son is now serving a 7 year prison sentence in California. There are plenty of studies that prove the connection between marijuana and violence/psychosis but neither my friend or I need any studies to convince us...we saw it first hand.
Dabbing has always seemed like overkill. I'm happy your son is ok. But this is not what happens to the vast majority of smokers. That is an horrible hammer story too. But I wonder why you are the nexus of so much craziness when others are not.
Not only is your comment rude and gratuitous, I'm pretty sure you know nothing about "what happens to the majority of smokers." You aren't paying attention, you don't read a lot and you're not an expert in anything. I just thought I'd throw those assumptions out there since that's what were doing.
You're wrong--these events are many and increasing every day. I'm sure it's way worse than we know and I find it interesting that the states, then the feds all of a sudden supported legalizing it. It doesn't exist until YOU decide that it's a thing.
Don't you think we'd notice if the vast majority of smokers, tens of millions of people, went psychotic after smoking?
Anyhow, how do you know what I read? How do you know my expertise, which happens to be extensive in the fields I work in? You seem to be the rude and gratuitous one.
I am legitimately wondering why so many people who don't seem to be involved with pot and therefore should have LESS exposure to weird outcomes, seem to have more exposure to weird outcomes. And I hypothesize that people are seeing more insanity in areas where pot smoking is mixed with meth use, since meth is much more associated with mental problems. Otherwise I find it hard to explain why I have known 100s of smokers with zero psychosis.
I'm sorry that having my own experience is so triggering for you. But the fact is I have a lot more first hand evidence than you do. I think Covid should have taught us that "experts" tend to have their own biases. You seem to want to believe pot is horrible. That is your right. If you have had negative experiences in your life around pot than I certainly understand your passion and certainty. But you have no more right to shut me up than I do you.
Al, anyone who is passionate about this subject has most assuredly had experience in their own family that has led us to Alex Berenson's book and other studies helping us make sense of what happened to our family members since like most people and obviously you, we assumed pot was the pot of 20-30 years ago. Your comment about me being at the nexus of so much craziness was a gratuitous jab and I wouldn't say calling my experience and a friend's experience as being at the Nexus. Our son's were some of the unlucky ones vulnerable to the much studied psychotic effects of vaping high potency thc which happens a lot more than you think and as with many psychotics prone to violence. I just posted somewhere on this chain a quote from an ER doctor in the Bronx who, in one month, treated 6 young men who presented at a hospital in New York with psychotic symptoms after vaping high potency THC. That is happening in every hospital in every city and town around the country and it is not all laced and that is a real problem. We are tired of everyone assuming that it must have been laced with something or that psychosis would have happened anyway or we are goodie two shoes with a hidden agenda. This is a problem that will and is getting worse and to stick to the subject matter of this article could be associated with the mental illness or state of mind of this and prior mass shooters so it needs to be taken seriously.
LRoman, I think you are over sensitive. I really DO wonder why some people experience so much chaos around pot, and others, like myself, having been around it for 40+ years, have not experienced any. However, I have not lived in a meth area. I wonder if you have. What over differences could there be? Since I am not harranguing people about drugs perhaps I know more about what people were doing when they succumbed to psychosis. I do know people who lost it over hallucinogens, for example. Though it is rarity. 2 people over 40+ years.
I am perfectly aware that pot potency has gone up. I simply haven't followed it there. I only get the potency I want and I stay away from vapes, concentrates, and dabs. And I don't really know people who do these extreme doses. Maybe that's the explanation of why I haven't seen people self destruct.
Who said the "vast majority of smokers...went psychotic?" Who said "tens of millions?" Nobody did--except you --in a desperate attempt to gaslight everyone. Your statement to the OP that you "wonder why you are the nexus of so much craziness when others are not" was indeed rude and gratuitous. So is your statement, "I am legitimately wondering why so many people who don't seem to be involved with pot and therefore should have LESS exposure to weird outcomes, seem to have more exposure to weird outcome." You are trying to insult the experience of others to the point of calling them crazy in order to justify your own smoking habits. We're the crazy ones right? You've assessed the math of smokers in your circle--great work. You're also a stoner, and it's all good because you're not psychotic. That's your theory against all the biased experts. I guess that fact alone disproves what numerous neurologists and researchers have found over several decades.
No one's trying to shut you up (there's that paranoia) --just calling you out on your BS.
AL, why are you so obnoxious? A previous poster talked about people going psychotic on pot. I said it didn't happen to the majority. Then you said what do I know about the majority? Then I said that such a large impact would be noticeable. Then you said who was talking about the majority. Well, you were, as well as an earlier poster.
As far as "Why should I believe my lying eyes, when a stranger on the internet knows better?": I believe my own experience because contentious questions like the effect of pot, video games, caffeine, wine all lead to many contradictory results and most studies are funded by people who are looking for a specific result and so the people they pay strive to structure the study to get that result, as we have seen with issues around covid.
Our experience, like people aren't dropping dead in the strrets of covid while all these yound athletes are dropping from heart problems after vaccination, actually give us a better basis for decision than the studies do.
Now, of course, if you have experienced all sorts of tragedy around pot, I am surprised by your experience, but I am NOT surprised by your decision to heed it. I just have had a different experience.
Your seem the paranoid one as far my trying to understand why people have such different and consistent experiences around pot. As I said, I suspect that other drugs are in the mix, like meth, that largely explain the difference and why it seems consistent, and therefore these differences are likely regional. This is something that could be explored in a study.
I experienced severe paranoia as a teen in the late 70’s I was smoking pot and chewing stems. One morning after a party driving home I saw a power line hanging low and I thought I was going to run into it. I stopped on the highway got out of the car and realized i was hallucinating hours after my last joint. Thank God that was the last time I partied…. I few times later in life, I tried it again and all that paranoia came back. When I tell friends my thing, they all say O, its the strain, or yea, sometimes it does that. Maybe a small number of Marijuana user have paranoia, but I think like Covid we don’t know the truth. Epoch Times had an article on “cannabinoid hyperemesis” an ER doctor in Pueblo CO. Unfortunately it is behind the paywall. Link is here https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-true-cost-of-marijuana-a-colorado-town-that-went-all-in_3546091.html?utm_source=ai&utm_medium=search Needless to say the authoritarians want to point to guns and not their deliberate destruction of society. Grab your Bible and read what Jesus says about end days. If you want life everlasting Jesus will give you that. If you want to understand what is going on in America today Jesus will show you.
You can get through this paywall and many others by turning off javascript for the site. Brave lets you do this easily. Other browsers have addons (I recommend NoScript) that can help.
Are all those victims anti-Jesus? Or does Jesus accept bad people and letting good people be harmed by them, just as if he couldn't do anything much less care to do anything?
It sounds like you have a mental disorder that marijuana was triggering. I'm glad you have stopped, too.
That was kind of you at the end, but did Jesus make that trigger pull? Nope, that's free will.
As for the Bible, the word is sorcery and the Greek root word is Pharmakia, but you don't want to know and that's your choice. Do you really want a god who will make you do or want to understand something against your will? Neither will JESUS CHRIST. But there is one on the horizon coming soon i am sure you'll love that will force you. This is your choice and everyone else's.
Schizophrenia typically appears in early 20s, just saying. There could be environmental triggers that combined with genetic disposition in these cases, unfortunately. Very sorry for what these families deal with.
I know that’s true but it was the only true indicator. Historically it has been diagnosed as genetic and there is usually and obvious familiar connection/evidence. This is slightly different too- schizophrenia symptoms.
How hard would it be to create a chemical that produced this result?
If you've seen it, then it must be true. After all, it's clear how you can see use of pot turn people into psychotic killers. All the potheads are coming from the people who prefer to blame pot over a few insane violent actions.
Marijuana use is a common theme among almost every mass shooter. If we are to get an accurate profile of a potential mass shooter that fact is important and needs to be taken seriously especially knowing that studies have made a direct correlation between marijuana use, (high potency thc)and psychosis particularly in some, not all, adolescents and young men. Pot doesn't turn all people into psychotic killers but it can cause psychosis that might make some vulnerable people violent and kill. Marijuana use needs to be included on the bullet point list of the profile of a mass shooter.
Same here - have good friends - their seemingly normal son had a schizophrenic break several years ago... parent's cannot understand. But we friends who know the truth know that the kid was a heavy weed smoker in college and after - and expect that use continued up until the break. It makes perfect sense to the rest of us, but his parents have never figured it out - won't tell them because it would break the friendship and do no good to their situation... But I am TOTALLY convinced that heavy weed use can and does trigger Schizophrenia.
So this happened at age 20? That is around the age schizophrenia manifests itself.
One young man in my circle of friends suddenly, when he was 19-20, started behaving disruptively. It was never violent or threatening, was religion-based behavior, and soon he had dropped out of Cambridge University, despite being brilliant. He never went near cannabis, hardly touched alcohol, and stayed away from illegal substances.
It had always been there; it just showed up when he reached the critical age.
"Just do something" is what people call for who want simple answers for complex reality.
But the more you make life hard on people via government force, confiscation of their property, Covid lockdowns, telling people they are "non-essential" and destroying childhood and schooling has consequences.
Nothing is definitive. Like smoking didn't cause lung cancer for decades because they couldn't prove causation definitively. That is how pharma gets away with all of their crap, too. But anecdotes are not all that we have. Doctors--neurologists and researchers have been studying this for decades.
Not asking anyone to "do something." Just be aware that this is a problem that has been studied. Kids shouldn't be smoking anything.
Sure, children shouldn't, and yet they do, and they did long before it was legalized for adults. Are we to live our adult lives as children to the state because some mentally challenge children have bad outcomes while millions more seem to use it daily for all of time without psychotic violence outbreaks.
When the science is clear, explaining how marijuana drives psychosis and how that psychosis drives violence (most crazy people at any age do not shoot up children in schools).
Unlike smoking and cancer, this isn't an outcome from high usage over many years (and also is legal for adults to use and kids may or may not use despite it being illegal, and same for alcohol, so much the same), but appears in short order in children. It therefore should be far easier to prove.
Berensons' book is good source full of information but he can also do a simple google search. The below excerpts are taken from a google search of "cannabis and youth" and the resulting article from Psychiatry Advisor but there are plenty of scholarly articles to look at too. "Moreover, during adolescence, cannabis is associated with increased psychiatric emergency department (ED) visits and increased risk for psychosis, with some research suggesting that it might as much as double the risk for psychosis and schizophrenia. "In the past month, I have treated 6 young men — adolescents or young adults — who presented to the ED with psychosis induced by vaping high-potency cannabis,” Wilfrid Noel Raby, PhD, MD, Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, told Psychiatry Advisor. Not sure but 6 young men in 1 month from one hospital seems a little more than just "anecdotal" as you mentioned in a prior comment.
I took a little liberty in the expression bc it’s a comment, not a book. What I meant was that there was no mental illness history until it manifested itself somewhat out of the blue.
Schizophrenia doesn’t manifest till your 20’s and can skip generations also. You won’t have a history because it manifests later. Also how much of it goes unreported in their youth because either embarrassment or ignoring it. The study’s done on MJ were done to make it look bad because studies are very restricted since it’s federally illegal to administer, use or study on. If you look at the studies they never administer it. They go by the persons testimony on use and do not show what other drugs, alcohol use or prescription medications they are using. The government also has a patent on it which directly states it has health benefits. I started using it in my 40’s after becoming legal in my state for my MS. My husband was a long term user (6+) in his youth along with most his school in a rural area and no one had mental illness after. They all had jobs and went to college. Most of them, not all quit in their 20’s. My husband quit overnight to go into the military and haven’t used since. The studies in Alex’s book are very flawed because one they are using personal testimony on use and not taking any detailed information about medical, alcohol use or prescription history. They do not follow long term before and after use. On prescription meds they directly administer, take detailed history and follow long term. The studies on MJ doesn’t because it is federally illegal to administer, use or study. Also SSRIs at an early age can cause schizophrenia and mental illness more then MJ. All these teen shooters all had been on SSRI’s or a Ritalin. Unfortunately it’s not found out till months after when more details are revealed. Those brain altering prescription drugs causes suicidal tendencies also. Also when these mass shooters started is when those drugs were being administered to kids starting in the 90’s.
Everyone has a history if it is genetic. Period. It doesn't sometimes "skip generations." As a rule, it skips one generation almost always and if it doesn't it's more likely your aunt or uncle will have it but not your mother or father. Your husband wasn't smoking this pot "in his youth"--it's different now. Nor is it "federally illegal" as it once was. Schizophrenia can (usually does) manifest between the ages of 15 and 35, not "til your 20s."
This is tiring. It may or may not have health benefits, in one form or another, and it is still helpful for cancer patients who have pain and nausea. But it is not good for teenagers. Many people can smoke all day long and get away unscathed. But others won't. And yes, other "medications" can cause mental problems too. So can pesticides in our food and water. But when a UCLA neurological surgeon tells a parent that marijuana was a likely cause of a persistent psychotic condition, that he has seen it throughout his career and studied it, I don't think you can categorically dismiss it because you used to smoke pot and it was no big deal.
Agree, medicating so many youngsters with pharmaceuticals is despicable. But everyone wants the so called magic pill, so psych gives it out like candy. I won't do it. Are there occasions when it might be necessary, sure but no way most of the time.
So, do you think there’s a possible link from 60+ childhood jabs, to increased ADD/ADHD/hyperactivity, etc, as a gateway to SSRIs, and next on to brain chemistry changes, which then enhances drug use uptake? And then are all the cascading events (sure, throw in stress, unstable home life, abuse, depression, anxiety, poverty, and the rest of the kitchen sink) mentioned above going to link to psychosis and right on to cannabis use and violence? Where does “thoughts of suicide” show up? And premeditated violence against others? Hard to see the direct jump right from cannabis to violence. I feel like some important steps are being left out or not considered? Your thoughts? Thx
Just because other drugs can cause mental illness does not mean that MJ does not... there is at least a clear correlation based on the reports here, and with a statistical/medical analysis probably a causation one as well.
Fifteen years from normal to schizophrenic behavior seems like over night to me. if they were my children anyway. My twin boys are 9 now and it's seemed like yesterday that they weighed 6 pounds.
"Kelley had anti-anxiety drugs too; a lot of heavy cannabis users wind up using Xanax or Klonopin to try to tamp down their paranoia."
Alex is definitely, 100% sure that SSRI's, benzodiazepines and other mood-altering drugs that have only been on the market a few decades are *for-sure* NOT to blame for the huge spike in violence over those *same* few decades, but marijuana, which has been consumed for centuries, definitely is at fault.
Of course SSRI's are terrible and Pharma is nothing short of legalized drug dealers. What does this have to do with the harmful effects of chronic marijuana use? Both can be bad.
Judging by the comments here, most potheads suffer from a serious inability to advance a logical argument. Add that to the side effect list.
I was actually making two separate points, but it's hard to take your criticisms seriously when you conflate people that don't believe Marijuana causes psychosis with people that actually take Marijuana.
While drinking gave me migraines in college, weed was everywhere. Not interested as it was illegal. Took the challenge and found I gained 20lbs, hallucinated and realized even the smallest amount would impair judgement with distance while driving. I quit. I won’t engage a conversation with high folks.
Rejecting God results in a proliferation of evil. A proliferation of evil results in violence. It's a natural progression. We need God back in our country.
Makes sense. And no, not every pot head becomes a criminal. But it’s bad for you either way. And I voted for legalization - expecting it would save resources and let some stupid people grow pot in their back yard. Silly me. Instead it is now devolving into a state-sponsored corporate distribution network and taxation scheme. Ultimately, many more people will die as a result. And yes, I know alcohol is even worse blahblah - which is why I don’t drink and tell my kids to stay away from all of this bullshit. It fries brains. Period.
I and many of my friends smoke everyday and are highly productive contributing members of society. You have to smoke all day everyday to mess yourself up with weed.
Yes. I've been around successful and contributing members of society that smoke pot every day all day and I'm surprised they can handle so many responsibilities.
Have YOU ever been around people that smoke weed all day? They're way more stable than people who drink just half the day!
depends a lot on the person. its the drug-person-environment relationship. not just the drug. when i was kid i was shocked to find out my parents high functioning lawyer couple (with 2 kids) friends did coke a few times a year. how did they stop from wrecking their lives? why didn't they loose everything? wasn't it instantly addictive? that's what the TV in the 80s told me.
i personally don't benefit from weed use. however i have known very smart productive people that smoked weed habitually for decades. held a job. no major life issues. they did not realize they were supposed to go psychotic i guess.
Our brains aren't fully developed until the age of 25. Smoking pot as a teen probably interferes with that development. Alex isn't "going off the deep end", he's on point.
“ Media violence is only one of many factors that contribute to societal violence and is certainly not the most important one. Media violence researchers have repeatedly noted this.”
Seems to me we should be focusing on broken families and bad parenting in this case… as well as possible drug use. Not sure why you brought up video games, seems you have an axe to grind
My 20 year on the way home from Ole Miss two weeks ago talked to me about social media, instant gratification and his concern for the 6 and 9 step siblings he about to get. I could go on but this article was just sent to the steps mom-thank you for that. We got a huge issue now: mental health, social media, government lock down BS, our kids need help. This is not politics.
Our kids are being taught to hate Americans, their neighbor, and that everyone else is to blame for their problems. One of the most basic things you do to brain wash a soldier is dehumanize the enemy. When you start to dehumanize your neighbor, what do you expect?
Bob, i support the comment and agree with you. Kudos for the response. I will add, the family breakdown is not doing anyone any favors nor is the criticism of believe in God.
It's not only the effects of dehumanization, it's the devaluing of life. Here I point to the approximately ~60 million dead babies since Roe. When we lose all concept of the sanctity of life, bad shit happens.
True, but you obviously haven't spoken with anyone that had bad reactions to mj. It's a real thing, scary, and very sad. Doesn't affect everyone, but I know personally two people that didn't think it affected them, but man oh man, we all just shake our heads, it's too late now. Do your own research before making a hard stand.
Yeah. I had many friends that did fine while high. But i know one that let it consume them and it got worse. The sad thing is we got along better when the other half was free. And if you have something going on behind the scenes that made you a tad unstable and you add to it?
yet a huge push by the left to legalize weed and more nationwide. it's almost as though everything the left and those in permanent government do is harmful to the fabric of a peaceful and functioning society.
Weed also reduces cognitive function in addition to the relevant rate of psychosis. So the purpose of the left here is the same as open boarders. Votes for Marxist.
marijuana is not a huge cause of violence unless it is laced or taken in combination with other drugs. Most likely your study did not test for 5g, or vaccine injury radiation poisoning. data is often faked to portray the desired I have been told by insiders in the pharma manufacturers. I smoked grass in my younger days but out grew it man years ago.
I dont have anything against pot, I smoked it in the 80s when it was pure plant(I think). It seems nowadays that there might be a little more than just plant.
I guess it depends on your definition of huge. It causes plenty. Plenty of ER studies have shown the correlation with psychosis and violence. I know, "correlation doesn't prove causation". Just keep telling yourself that.
I was. totally paranoid. never liked it, never used it after the age of 13...Why do we always assume every thinks or responds the same? to LOTS of things.
I agree with Alex due to firsthand experience. Started smoking pot in junior high and through most of high school. Went from being a straight A student to barely graduating. It not only made me paranoid and later on depressed, it also affected my memory and abstract thinking. I am convinced that weed permanently diminished my short term memory because I struggled in college and struggle to this day (I’m in my fifties). I also had aspirations of being a drug dealer and bad ass criminal while partaking this “harmless” wonder drug. Thank god my dad set me straight all those years ago. It does affect your perception and judgement and young people should stay away from it. I regret ever smoking it.
Margaret Trudeau, hippie-dippy stoner, Club 54 flasher, and mother of Canada's total idiot Prime Minister, is known to have said in her older and wiser years that basically every time she smoked up she had an attack of psychosis. Her drug use explains a lot of sad episodes in her life -- and we who live in Canada think it explains how and why she gave birth to such an empty-headed eldest child.
I'm all-American but I married Canada, and have lived here for about 50 years. Have seen a lot of Canuck politicians come and go -- most of them outstanding mediocrities, though the French ones can be entertaining. Trudeau is not one of those. There are a lot of people who think his ding-bat Mom was schtupping Castro, but I don't know. I look at him and see both of his parents in his face. I think we'll have to wait until he gets a bit older to see which old Commie he resembles more. Lord knows he did not inherit his father's political skills, or clever way with words -- though Trudeau père was certainly a disdainful ideologue and an elitist street-fighter. Pierre invoked the War Measures Act and put tanks on the streets, but he was countering a real insurrection which involved bombs and a murdered politician found in the trunk of a car. Justine invoked the (newly re-christened) Emergencies Act when a bunch of truckers were line-dancing in the streets of Ottawa and honking their horns, because Junior was determined to destroy the economy. (Still is.) Justine doesn't have the charisma or brains of either of his putative fathers. So the jury's still out on that question.
Alex. You are very brave bringing up this subject. Where I live in Washington state, saying anything negative about marijuana gets you in lots of trouble. But the fact is there are some very troubling issues related to this drug that many here call medicine. When I walk down some streets in Seattle, I am in a cloud of pot smoke for blocks. So everyone i come across should be calm and relaxed, right? Well no, everyone is shuffling around with their pants around ankles or screaming at the sky. Did pot do this to them? We won't know until we look closely at the situation. And you have already started to- so thank you for that. Keep at it even though it is very unpopular at the moment.
The use of cannabis or the veritable army of pharmaceutical drugs is a symptom of a larger issue: the complete disintegration of the societal structures that reward good behavior and discourage bad behavior. We live in upside down world, run by an idiocracy that pretends that the sky is green and that there is no black & white, no good or evil and anything goes. No one needs a purpose -- everyone just needs their range of the moment desires & whims instantly rewarded. The collapse of thinking and the use of reason has been ongoing for 7 decades. Our fake largesse, created not by hard work, but by grift & con, is coming to an end. All of the demons are going to come out of the closet and many of them will be addled by drugs. But that won't be the reason they seek to spread death & destruction -- it's what they have been spoon-fed by our sick society from birth.
“Cannabis causes psychosis, and psychosis causes violence.” Cannabis CAN cause psychosis and psychosis CAN cause violence. There are a lot of people who like weed and don’t have a problem with it, but there are some like my brother where marijuana use in teen years definitely contributed to him developing schizophrenia at age 20. Don’t paint this with a large brush, it alienates so many people and the whole point is to make people aware it CAN be dangerous to a minority of users. You just don’t know who it will negatively affect just like you don’t know who will turn into an alcoholic. But the answer isn’t prohibition, it’s education. Your book is essential in doing that. And it’s illuminating (and kind of funny) to see the potheads get their hackles up when you suggest the harm.
the difference is it doesn't matter to alex one way or the other if marijuana is helpful or harmful
i mean, you know, before he wrote the book at least
but i'm just going to posit that some here are completely discounting the fact that marijuana played any part in this shooting as a way to absolve themselves from any culpability associated to their own advocacy
well, more like making a bad metaphor worse in an attempt to show how treacherous this can be
"we should eliminate alcohol first" is pretty common on this page
it is a bigger problem, yet essentially unrelated
how many alcoholics could reasonably trace their psychosis or any motivation for a mass shooting to alcohol primarily?
there are a lot of problems related to alcohol like drunk driving & domestic abuse, but mass shootings aren't famously high on the list, so it's a better metaphor but not a perfect one
even comparing marijuana from 30 years ago with the fentanyl-laced substances on the streets today is a poor analogy
my original comment was really for the people who could not admit to themselves that there was a teeny, tiny possibility that marijuana played a part in this
Sadly I have seen this in my own family. My brother in law has been smoking for decades. He is on antianxiety meds now and has my sister track his location because he has gotten so paranoid. His paranoia and anger has gotten worse the more heavily and longer he uses...now he has isolated his family from everyone. I know this doesn't happen to every user but just like alcohol it can make some go off the deep end.
Because of the hybridization process, most of the weed now is so strong it will make your teeth chatter and induce incredible anxiety and paranoia. This isn't your father's 1975 Acapulco Gold anymore.
I made this point years ago. Pot rage is real. If you know any chronic daily smoker who has smoked for ten or more years they are very angry. Not so much when they’re high. Or rather they are when they’re high but it is muted. It really comes out when they’re not high. It almost always is aimed at society. It’s aimed at some sort of amorphous thing that runs things. People laughed at me when I used to say ‘pot rage is real’. But I would question the person and ask if they knew anyone who smoked daily and had for a long time. And were they really angry about large social ideas. And were they actually quite angry people who appeared not. Almost everyone admitted they did know people exactly like that. I think it crosses into the brain and inflamed brain tissue. I’m not sure a gummy would have the same effect.
I know a number of 60+ age professionals who lite up every day when they get home, their lives seem like a hamster wheel, they can't wait to get that hit so they can relax. It is an addiction, just like I struggle with drinking 1/2 a bottle of wine most nights and it usually ends up being 1+ bottles. It is an addiction with consequences period.
Alex, why is it not possible that people with neurological issues use cannabis to self medicate rather than the idea that they are perfectly fine and then develop neurological problems from taking cannabis?
Please read Alex's book. He addresses this and provides strong evidence that cannabis causes the problem. The claim that he ignores correlation vs causation is completely inaccurate.
I dated a man for nine years who admitted that if he hadn't been beholden to marijuana in his younger years he would have made something more of his life~~he said it made him apathetic and unmotivated. In high school (late 1970s) I remember trying to have conversations with my dear pot-smoking friends with their red eyes and the lack of being able to engage in even the smallest of small talk.
And now my best friend (a woman, 52 years old) is hooked on Adderall...she wanted to take it to lose weight...he doctor willingly gave it to her (she told him she had ADHD) and now she also drinks wine combined with a gummy every night. Recently she told me she has lost all sense of "care" for anything that happens to her and those she loves which is very much out of character for her.
Nation of zombies?? Add to that the effects from the jibby jab? Add to that the addiction of TikTok and porn and who knows what else?
This is how they want us. Stupid and numb and compliant. And psychotic if we have the right combination of life events. Yay, us!
My old college boyfriend couldn’t survive without a bong hit first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. And that doesn’t include his smoking throughout the rest of the day. He’s now 60 and is still hooked. Lives in FL but gets it “underground” from his pothead buddies. The man can barely string two sentences together and it takes serious effort. I’m a 52 year Colorado native and it was a sad day when legalization passed here. We attracted all the dirtbags from around the country. It’s lovely to drive into town and see folks in the car next to you smoking it up. Part of what has made Denver now such a dump.
Depressed people smoke pot to feel better. Depression harms motivation and feelings of connection. Why would you think the pot is causal?
When you first start smoking the memory problems are worse. Now I can do advanced math, physics and programming while stoned because I am used to the effects. I get short term amnesia if I smoke a lot but it has limited impact on math and programming probably because they are step by step and you write down each step as you do it so you don't lose track. Pot definitely helps with visualizing problems.
Ehh I'd trust marijuana before I'd trust ssri's.... And I'm a psych nurse. Parents just wanna throw pills at kids and not discipline them. Kids growing up without God is bad news too, no empathy for others. Also the parkland shooters mother used illegal drugs when he was in utero
and there's Geo Floyd meth'd up and fentanyl and no telling what else and the whole ordeal blamed on everyone but him or his drug use. When you convince people that they are victims,, this is how they act. No integrity, no purpose, no character, no regard for other humans. It is called NARCISSISM and it is why satan got kicked out of heaven. And the most beautiful example of narcissism is Beto O'Roarke disrupting the Govenor during a news briefing...100% arrogant SOB. And may he continue to self destruct.
So Alex, I'm confused. Did the guns make them smoke weed?
When I grew up firearms were commonplace. Just as much as today. Perhaps not as refined, but they still had plenty of lethality. Yet somehow we managed not to shoot each other. It's not the guns. If Ramos didn't have guns he'd have waited for recess and run them over with his truck.
Go look at the frequency of mass murder events in Australia after their ban. They didn't go down, they just changed weapons (sometimes, sometimes they just used illegal firearms).
It's a pointless hypothetical. With 400 million firearms in the US, they aren't going away even if enough of us wanted them to. Also, you need to consider how many additional deaths there would be if people did not have firearms available for self-defense... The Obama administration CDC has studied the use of firearms in the US in the interest of public health. They report that firearms are used for self defense between 500,000 and 3 millions times each year. That is what 2A means, in part, when "translated" to real world situations. If you want to stop illegal gun violence, then start enforcing the law instead of defunding the police and releasing criminals from prison.
Two quotes from the report which you may find of particular interest:
“Self-defense can be an important crime deterrent,”
“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,”
*Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence, 2013
Not gonna lie, I can agree to disagree on cannabis but I really disagree with you on this one lol. Progressives do love to legalize drugs. And have a lot of crazy ideas I disagree with. I'm surely biased (I love cannabis) but there surely are a lot worse drugs that are legal on the market.
Knowledge is power my friend. Just cuz it hasn't affected you, doesn't mean it won't, or doesn't affect others. I tell my high schoolers to do their own research, go in with eyes wide open.
Did i say that? lol. I practice the golden rule. I'm not out here telling people to smoke weed or force feeding them edibles. I Have found cannabis to be profoundly improve my life. but to each their own.
When you're talking about cannabis but leaving out the effects of SSRI's prescribed by drug pushers with better lobbyists you sound like the type of propagandists you take issue with behind the plandemic. Lots of studies about the effect of those causing murderous psychosis. Nice, easy target to aim for cannibis. When the root of much more evil lies in the hands of the very same drug companies pushing dangerous, harmful experimental drugs into the world's population with evil lies and propaganda. Can you comprehend that Big Pharma is the biggest evil we face even beyond "vaccines"?
Turned many a mentally ill mind into homicidal youth. I was in Colorado's politically connected world when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a murderous rampage at Columbine. The investigation came up with all of the instances of SSRI over-prescribing to youth resulting in mass murder. Knew members of the investigating committee. Furious that the evidence of Big Pharma's fingerprints all over the tragedies was covered up...Big Pharma $$ and power more important that public safety. Just like they're doing today with dangerous, unsafe and ineffective experimental "vaccines." Same baddies. But you blame marijuana? Wow. Cognitive dissonance much?
Got to disagree with you - I have benefitted greatly over 30 years taking an SSRI for depression/anxiety. I'm sure that is the case with millions of people as well. I do not deny that there are problems with them for some people in some cases. I'm sure you have some case to counter-point my experience, but I cannot agree with your broad statement.
I'll concede that there could be a big difference in the risks for adults vs. children on SSRI's. Just like with marijuana. Young, developing brains with lots of neural pathways being wired and firing up that encounters chemical disrupters I suspect have a greater risk of being damaged in the empathy zones of the brain than in adult brains. Speculation, but have seen others with more credentials than I offering that reasoning which resonates with my understanding.
Seems like it does. I have a relative who has been smoking for decades and while there is definitely neurosis involved, they’ve had two psychotic episodes that required hospitalization in roughly ten years
Wow, how people lose their shit when discussion of the harmful effects of pot comes up. It is really sad, because I know first-hand how pot can cause severe psychosis. I would not wish that on anyone. It may be that 99% of people are just fine smoking weed all day long. But there's a percentage who simply cannot. I think of it like peanut butter. Perfectly harmless and healthy except when it's not.
Can cause... The biggest problem with most of the comments on here, including Alexs' lies in math.
Numbers do not lie. The sheer number of daily smokers in this country is so large that if it were even remotely true that weed causes psychosis the US would experience multiple psychotic violent episodes per day. You have destroyed your own argument because you are biased and fail to use basic fundamental logic.
Look at the number of people commenting here who are saying they smoke tons and are just fine, then they go on to argue badly, and there's meanness in it too. No, they're not fine and the numbers I'm seeing tell me that 99% being "fine" is way too generous. I've never met any set of smokers in my life where that could be true. There's supposed to be some vast pool of smokers who are all totally fine, and I've never run into a sample of them all in one place? I doubt it.
RAK, I think you are giving selective attention to cases that fit your hypothesis in terms of who is meaner or who argues worse. But have you considered that you are less likely to even know that successful smokers ARE cannabis users? As you can see here, there is a lot of discrimination against smokers, so people are less likely to volunteer that they smoke. So you only know about the ones who lead disordered lives that make their status obvious.
Trying to understand why people have such a different experience than me, I suggest that people are blaming pot for the results of other drugs. What people attribute to pot sounds like meth to me. It is easier to confess to pot use than harder drugs. Less stigma. I think concerned families and onlookers don't know what people are really on and the people involved are hesitant to tell them.
Horse shit, Alex. Those guys were self-medicating with anything they could find. It just so happens that pot is one of the easiest drugs to get ahold of. They were psychotic from the day they were born. t's just that everyone is afraid to say something, even professionals. If the evaluator who did a psych work up on the Buffalo shooter had been competent, s/he'd have seen the signs right then and there.
That’s not true. Psychotic episodes require some sort of supportive stimuli. Perhaps 1/3 of the population is capable of having a bipolar to the point of psychosis episode. Just as 1/3 likely could become addicted.
I was using the term in a broad sense. They are wired wrong. These mass shooters have shown signs ever since they were little. People missed/didn't want to see them. You CANNOT tell me that teachers haven't talked about those kids in the teachers' lounge or haven't gone to the school social worker and said "Something's off" with so-and-so. You KNOW when a kid is off. We can all see Biden is off. It's an innate ability in all animals, humans included, to keep the species/community safe. On the same token, those same people tend to self-medicate with anything they can find. I know pot production has changed over the years with some strains causing psychotic problems in certain people but there are also strains that can cause paranoia OR calm people down. Pot is not a one-size-fits-all but most people are normal. These shooters, which is what Alex's piece was about, are a whole 'nuther breed.
What happens in a permissive society that rejects God, excuses soft crime and rude behavior while promoting alcohol and pot use, promotes gender confusion, led by leaders who hate this country and its founding, continually call us racists, divide us into categories, pitting one group against another? Surprise!!! Surprise!!! More serious crime! We have a serious culture problem; that's the root cause!
Alex, nobody writing today has your cred on this issue. Readers should also turn to Peter Hitchens’s The War we never Fought. What is the root cause of pervasive psychosis among throwaway children steeped in media ?
God Alex, you have so much good to offer. Why you choose this empty cause is just unfathomable.... I grew up with 50 years of cannabis. You are lost on this one..
Question: I have no experience with it, no horse in the race, but from my vantage point cannabis seems a better alternative for a lot of things than big-pharma pharmaceuticals... is this not the case?
Please note I know nothing, and have never partaken. But from people I know and trust, whom use it for a specific reason, not a hobby or lifestyle choice, it seems a net benefit over the “acceptable” alternatives.
I tried it for pain... and I feel for you and your friend. Everyone reacts to medicines or drugs differently. Can we please just accept that? We are still in the 21st century clinging on to the delusion that EVERYONE is the SAME and will REACT the same. It is just not true.You can pump me full of penicillen and I will die of sepsis. Humans are INDIVIDUALS...different blood types, different metabolisms, etc.
In the future, if the human race lives that long, people will look back and think ¨how stupid these people were to not realize that no one reacts the same to the same things::...
I love you Alex I really do. I posted something on your earlier article referring to SSRIs causing this kind of carnage but later I wondered if it was reefer madness. Loco weed. Thank you for posting this.
Yep. All drugs and alcohol are bad. Interesting how people so quickly get defensive over this truth. Cannabis is not harmless. I can tell you by watching people I love become incapable of adulting and also becoming paranoid. I wonder why so many people are willing to be unemployed by COVID mandates and come closer and closer to the WEF prescribed lifestyle of owning nothing, eating no meat, and being happy about it.. Oh yeah, all that dope smoking renders one unmotivated. Folks, you may think it's not as bad as alcohol, but it really is. All these chemicals feel good for a time. All of them have negative consequences, especially with regular use.
Here's a thought: perhaps the end goal of the WEF/technocrats is to disarm us. If true, then increasing drug use via legalization (and increasing SSRI use via Pharma/prescription - similar to fentanyl) would just be the mechanism for provoking a whole lot of violence, and then they could proclaim that the "fix" is forced national disarmament.
People will still die from being deliberately run over by cars, but - cars don't scare the WEF/technocrats. Guns do.
Watch out Mr. Berenson, the pot lobby is gonna come after you!
You know, the recreational users I get, I’m not gonna be a hypocrite, I had a past but it’s long gone.
When I was in college I never respected the daily smokers who just were in school for a free ride, usually mommy and daddy paid for it.
No, the chronic daily users, they are addicts, they may not have the consequences of heroin or cocaine, but they’re not that far behind.
Apathy, cognitive disruptions, sometimes subtle medical issues that are just smoldering, and then the psycho-social struggles with those who aren’t gleefully willingly embracing this daily cannabis bullshit, these people are trouble.
Colorado continues to hide its consequences, and wait for the usual suspects to come here and tell us “you are the scumbags, pot is great, and if you don’t like it, get the fuck out of America!”
These people are morons, real life Cheech and Chong…
Just reading a lot of these comments reminds me of the pro-vaxxers who will argue against blatant proof of vaccine injury and give their children the jab anyway.
I don't doubt you one bit on this, Alex, and I know much of that goes back several years. However, I would also add into the puzzle the tremendous stress, isolation, forced mask wearing and shutdowns we've experienced for over two years - not to mention the hatred and division amply fomented by the Democratic Party and the Media.
Kern - I've only skimmed the article but it seems well written and it definitely confirms my own suggestion. Obviously, I'm not the only one putting 2 and 2 together on this one. THANK YOU for the article!
A friend of mine, working professional, started using a lot of marijuana and ended up hallucinating that she was gonna marry a famous billionaire. Her brother was already diagnosed with schizophrenia. She ended up voluntarily in an institution for a month. Probably pushed her over the edge. Maybe some people can’t handle their pot. My ex sister in law had a similar experience. Left her kid and husband to live on the streets waiting for a dead celebrity to marry her.
Alex, don’t confuse correlation with cause-and-effect.
Yeah, I don't. And neither do the psychiatrists and researchers who have been studying this relationship for 40 years.
You should be rallying against alcohol if your going to go down this route.
Drugs (alcohol is a drug) mess with you. Lots of drugs mess with you lots.
Drug use is a sign of an empty, hollow life and is suicide on the installment plan, whether users want to admit it or not.
Alcohol. Aka "ethanol" is naturally occurring in food. In fact, it is part of our culinary practices and has been since human history. A fruit or grain falls to the ground, enzymes turn the starches into sugars and yeast eat the sugars and produce ethanol and other alcohols. Most people can metabolize it fine. Like anything it can be abused.
However, cannabis has a psychotic effect for heavy and long-term users. It is not a food... it is only a recreational drug. It has some beneficial properties... mostly the CBD... but it is also a dangerous drug at the high concentration levels of THC produced today. I know several young men that have been hospitalized with psychotic issues after heavy and consistent use.
> cannabis has a psychotic effect for heavy and long-term users.
false. the vast majority of long-term heavy users do not experience psychotic effects.
> It is not a food
false, it is a food, and a very healthy one at that.
> it is only a recreational drug.
false. it is a useful therapeutic for many purposes.
> a dangerous drug at the high concentration levels of THC produced today.
false
> I know several young men that have been hospitalized with psychotic issues after heavy and consistent use.
And I know several more who have not.
What the hell have you been smoking to write all that!?
Speaking from observation, smoking too much weed does have a deleterious long term effect on the brain.. the odd spliff is fine, but regular heavy use is best avoided.
To quote you..."false, the majority of long-term heavy users do not experience psychotic effects"..
Duh - we are not talking about the majority here - we are talking about the cases where it DOES induce psychotic issues and those issues turn into violent actions.
You are playing Russian roulette with weed - you don't know if/when your system will react to the cannabis with psychotic behavior. If you are one of those folks - your life is ruined. Now your life can be ruined with Alcohol too, I'm not making a distinction - except that the "rare" psychotic behavior often does express itself in violent and deadly behavior.
Would it be fair to characterize you as a regular user or some would say an abuser?
remembering that native americans, some eastern euros like serbs and indigenous japanese lack the enzyme to metabolize alcohol, making it addictive, mind-bending and poisonous to the brain.
True that some lack the enzymes. I lack them to digest wheat. But the Japanese and Chinese drink a lot.
Went to college with a full blooded Sioux from South Dakota.
I can attest to the above.
It was eye opening how little it took for him to get plastered and at the same time could drink all night unable to stop until the body basically blacked out.
There is no next day with the guys laughing about the events the night before because he do not remember anything that happen the night before...
...and the behavior while drunk goes way beyond what ordinarily occurs when people are intoxicated...
The issue with cannabis gets into so many swampy weeds with agriculture, transport, contamination with other substances, etc, etc it’s simply not a great stabile platform to argue much from. Especially on mental illness. We are suffering a huge on swell of anger and failure to cope. This feeds instability. We have many unstable who are more likely to turn to drugs of all sorts to dull the pain. We have an epidemic of narcissistic personality disorder due to social media selecting for it. We have predatory governments, corporations, institutions feeding off our families and communities. We have an epidemic of mass hysteria and frank stupidity as the information blackout and intense propaganda continue. Wow!
when overwhelmed there's always the bible KW. 2 Colossians 7:14
Many first psychotic breaks are triggered by pot.
Is that just your expert opinion or do you actually have proof of that claim. I assumed you are an expert but perhaps with your proof of that claim you can verify your expert status as well.
Any good drug will supply the perfect psychic storm to make it more convenient to come face to face with truth. Some will break in the face of this. Erich Fromm had much to say on this. Even laughing gas the dentist provides may trigger this. State Fascism will also trigger this among the severely damaged.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erich-Fromm
It's a LOT more of a food than alcohol, which is a toxin, and is also not particularly older in human culture.
Any abused substance is a problem.
Speaking of food, overindulge there and death awaits.
You really should not offer opinions so detached from reality. It weakens Alex's already tissue thin argument.
if I overindulge in food - the death awaiting is only my own... can't say that for weed and alcohol.
I have seen this first hand.
Calling it a food is a stretch. It is effective at lysing cell walls as we learned in honors biology. It does occur naturally, but is a toxin.
Calling it a toxin is part of the woke indoctrination project. You should seek some help.
Alcohol does not natural exist in food. It is created by yeast or certain bacteria through a process called fermentation.
Alcohol is generated by a natural process that is common. Enzymes that convert starches to sugars are generally in and on the fruit, vegetable, grain, etc. This is how a starchy green banana turns yellow and sweet. Yeast are also in abundance everywhere. Cultured yeast is a relatively recent process. Before that the fermentation process was simply to allow the organic substrate to ferment itself with access to the open air. Yes, bacteria and molds can also do that job... in some cases both the enzymatic breakdown of starches and the conversion of the sugars into alcohol. Koji mold for example is uses in many Asian rice alcohol beverages. Lactobacillus is a common bacteria used in cheese making. These are all naturally occurring and part of the natural lifecycle of almost all non-meat food products.
Yes, alcohol exists naturally in food. If you have a fruit tree, pick up a very ripe fruit from the ground after it falls from the tree and eat it. You will generally be consuming alcohol.
Alcohol is produced when produce ferments on the ground, like blueberries. I witnessed drunk Cedar Waxwings on Gregory Bald in the Smokys in the 90's. We process it further to boast concentrations past the point that it would kill the yeasts.
I agree with most of your comment, except "its only a recreational drug". I believe there's no such thing as a recreational drug! All drugs are for sick people!
caffeine is a drug. technically so are chocolate and sugar. Are they only for sick people? Didn't know that.
Interesting perspective. Not sure I wrap my head around that given the history of drugs being consumed for recreational purposes. Steven Tyler just admitted to having spent $6 million on cocaine.
There's no such thing as a recreational drug!
you are a liar.
You can't generalise everyone is different and react to things differently. If everything was so cut and dried wouldn't health be so much easier to work out and I imagine doctors would have all the answers which they don't by a long way.
That is certainly true.
it is suicide to intimacy with yourself and being in touch with your heart. Total segway away from connection with others on any level of intimacy or truth. I can see it clearly and I still use alcohol knowing full well that it has 0% help or usefullness to my spirit life. Never used pot more than 10x and it was always b/c I was inebriated on alcohol or I never would have done it. Same thing with unprotected sex! Always drunk. There's no fixing it looking at all of the negative, we can only get into the Word and seek God daily. It is the empty void and lack of relationship knowledge of God that drives ppl to act like satan.
Boy howdy, & Praise Jesus. All things exist to glorify the Son of God! Return to The Word would alleviate all worries & anxieties at fraction of the cost of some meds. Can’t make cabbage when copy right laws aren’t in our favor. But the Word will not return void! Isa 55:11
Segue, not segway.
That's the alcohol speaking 😉
Being a prude is a sign of an empty hollow life.
No prude, me. Live and let live I say. But I see what drugs do to people and find it sad that they have so little of interest to do that they derive entertainment from poisoning themselves.
I see lots of people who vigorously defend their drug habits as “harmless fun”. They’re usually the ones who know the harm they are doing to themselves but childishly think that by pretending they’re not will make it so.
This is the definition of prude: Knowing everything, reading minds, a feeling of superiority for no reason. People smoke pot to keep people like you away.
Cringe
I say calling people prudes is. Is it are or are it is? I am now a prude, but once had a partying, fun filled alcohol and drug fueled life of debauchery. That was hollow. I am now filled by the Grace of GOD. Free yourself. JESUS is knocking. Will you answer and let Him in?
Tea and coffee are drugs. I know fora fact that ten cups of strong coffee turn anyone into a crazy wide-eyed loon: lets stay calm and keep a sense of perspective.
That's why I add Irish cream (Bailey's, Molly's, Ryan's etc...)
a good recipe for hypertension, but to each their own ;-)
"Steven Tyler just said he’s Spent $6 Million on Cocaine in his Lifetime"
https://ragnarforseti.substack.com/p/steven-tyler-says-hes-spent-6-million?r=hjhbr&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
yep and fair haired son Hunter B was spending 200k per month
He had two choices:
1. End up like Beau
2. Travel the world hustling millions while doing drugs and banging hookers
Smart man.
Working on a new book.
"Hunter Biden: The Man, The Myth, The Legend"
Here's a sneak peak: https://tenor.com/view/the-man-the-myth-the-legend-famous-nice-to-meet-you-gif-16682483
He had two choices:
1. End up like Beau
2. Travel the world hustling millions while doing drugs and banging hookers
Smart man.
And there he is, the picture of health.
74 years old, quadruple vaxxed and still sniffing coke and banging hookers...
If only we all could be so lucky
Which he had every right to do.
Yeah, that worked well. He's so toasted, he heard a song and wanted to do a cover of it. The other guys had to tell him that it was them playing the song.
I'm sorry this is happening to you.
It's my right to do whatever the hell I want as long as I'm not bothering others...
Alcohol is a downer. However, there is evidence that cannabis use can exacerbate underlying mental issues, in particular bipolar issues. Legalizing marijuana may create a major problem for the US.
No doubt that why it was legalized. More taxes. And the government probably spikes the pot sold in the shops
Alex is wrong and has been readng propaganda. Pot is good for everyone. The US Dept of Health even has a patent for pot, Pat No. 6630507, saying its a neuroprotectant and antioxidant. Everyone needs neuroprotection and more antioxidants even just for all the poisons government puts in the air, food, water and injections. Th most successful people use pot daily, as do the most unsuccessful.
People smoke pot, legal or not and it's decriminalized almost everywhere. So legalization is meaningless. This whole post hoc logic argument is stupid because pot use has been rampant for many years while it's been illegal.
pot is up 90%...but so is everything else....no, it's the pot
And we've had an increase in mental health issues... I know there's lots of factors involved but cannabis use could be one, particularly in people with a genetic propensity for mental health issues. .
I have three kids with bipolar disorder and one had been diagnosed schizophrenic. He was the one most negatively affected by pot but the real issue for them isn't pot, it's stimulants. They all want the stimulants because of the dopamine. It's what bipolar people seem to gravitate toward, that which will produce dopamine. Cigarettes are a problem with all three. The youngest recently quit smoking and has gone off all stimulants and no longer smokes pot. He went through a full treatment plan that lasted almost a year to get him off meth. That's where the stimulants got him. So my feeling is that pot is the least of the worries but that it certainly may have been a contributor to the overall toxic mix.
My youngest son no longer has the delusional thought process and psychotic behavior because most of that was produced by the stimulants and then the meth. I am way more concerned about that drug than pot or alcohol.
Another bad one that is legal and which my middle daughter has gone completely crazy on is kratom. That stuff has a terrible effect on her, she goes completely batshit crazy on it.
I agree. However, tobacco has also been used for hundreds of years. We strongly discourage it in this country and highlight all the negative health effects. We could do the same with marijuana, but people enjoy marijuana so they resist any criticism and defend its use.
You know they could open up cultivation and the strength would go down along with the price. The stuff does mess up your head. I know frompersonal experience.
Barry?
Alcohol is a desensitizer, while pot is a sensitizer. Sensitizers enhance your current mood, so not everyone is "happy," when using pot.
Not everyone who drinks gets drunk. I never smoked any pot I would buy that didn't have me in lala land in a few minutes. I think it doesn't allow many people to solve their problems and problems make people angry.
Stop with the straw man argument. That’s like saying beating your spouse is bad, and responding “let’s talk about how beating your kids is bad.” Two destructive habits don’t negate each other as worthy of discussion, and addiction, like violence, takes more than one form.
The problem with this argument is also that we DO warn kids from a young age about alcoholism. Alcoholism is destructive and lends itself towards domestic abuse, child abuse, and even correlated to porn addictions.
We DO NOT warn our kids about pot addictions - which often leads to laziness, celibacy, and detachment issues at best, and poor mental health desensitized to humanity in the extremes.
My father’s parents were poor, abusive alcoholics. The cops were at their house numerous times a week. He graduated at 17 and immediately left for Marine corp boot camp and Vietnam. He carries more survivors guilt from leaving his little siblings in that home (and he has it from both). Growing up my parents seldom drank in front of my brother and I, or much at all (they’ve caught up as empty nesters 😂), and taught us the warning signs for alcoholism from the time we were toddlers.
Conversely, my mom’s siblings are 80-year old pot heads. 25% of their children became heroine addicts and another 25% haven’t had real jobs 4-5 decades into life. They all had weird sex issues and 1 divorce from porn addiction. Despite great careers (including as a physician) they are around 80 and completely broke because of poor decision making and inability to plan long term.
While I’ve usually steered clear of pot, even in my wild party days, because I noticed the correlation even as a kid between their terrible mental health/ immature decision making, never once did my parents harp on the issues associated with pot. They didn’t bat an eye when they did catch me smoking pot at 14. I definitely didn’t steer clear of drugs and alcohol in my party days, but it was shortly after I tried pot a few times at 14 that I connected the dots between my very misguided extended family and their pot habits.
It’s not about “which is worse.” That is very dependent on the individual. It IS sn issue that people act like pot is “no big deal” and any pushback is met with straw man arguments about alcohol. Legal or not, the excessive consumption of either destroys lives, families, futures, mental health and relationships. Stop pretending like the harms of alcohol that we often discuss are justification to deflect from conversations about the harms from pot. Denial doesn’t change reality.
Very well said
This is very good and your words are strong medicine. Strawman arguments about comparing alcohol use really resonated with me. The pro-pot crowd is a club, and they are always trying to recruit new members, including myself. I think the THC deceives its users into thinking they are someone they are not and their arguments are mostly weak intellectually. Take the ultimate pothead poster boy, Joe Rogan. He and all his MMA buddies all use THC before fights and they say it improves their abilities. I like Joe but his skills of debate, especially about pot use are weak minded. And by the way I'm intimately acquainted with 2 young men who have spent time in a psych ward due to already existing mental issues and mega pot consumption on top of that. But the pro pot crowd doesn't see any problems here with adolescents consuming today's high THC weed. To quote Levon Helm playing the old sniper back in the woods (Shooter) , "Things aren't always what they seem are they gunnie?"
Love comedy......
Does anyone forget these young kids are doped, drugged and vaxxed up, eating genetically modified fake foods and literally learning everything wrong to do in life???
Then just teach kids about pot like alcohol. Problem solved. Regulation doesn't work.
It's not a strawman. It's a tu quoque.
You are a strawman.
Or woman.
Not sure of the gender.
Don't think so.
A strawman argument misrepresents the other side's argument to make arguing against it easier. A tu quoque is "whataboutism". People saying "what about alcohol?" are making a tu quoque argument.
That’s like saying “ Reefer Madness!” as a response to this higher THC plant that’s selling now. Absolute ignorance at its best. Alcohol is to today’s pot, like Tylenol is to Fentanyl. Yah, there’s higher doses of Tylenol, even prescription, but it doesn’t touch the effects of Fentanyl. Plus, it hasn’t been studied long term because people are dying! Or we can just ignore this connection & keep pushing high THC pot to our youth. Let’s just wait & see what happens. Great idea.
You MUST be the last Republican in Seattle. Lonely much?
I guess if I increased my subscriptions and podcasts like you, I’d never have time to ponder loneliness. There’s more red in this state than you think. BTW, are you paid for your responses? It seems the new trend for Dem.s to troll sites & get paid. Good for you. 👍
He argues with everyone throughout this thread and is an admitted stoner. That's why he is defensive of anything negative said about marijuana. His argument? He smokes it and even though he gets "amnesia" once in a while, it hasn't made him psychotic. Case closed.
Codeine to Fentanyl might be a better analogy.
Thank you, agreed. I guess my case for prescription was the Tylenol w- codeine . Thanks again!
If you reversed the places.
Anyone so thick as to think alcohol is the lesser evil shouldn't touch anything, their grip on reality is too tentative already.
Only a few go through each day drunk. Many MJ users dose themselves every hour or less from Wake and bake, to Put me to sleep. That is addiction, and the THC stays in the body for a very long time even after you quit.
"Steven Tyler just said he’s Spent $6 Million on Cocaine in his Lifetime"
https://ragnarforseti.substack.com/p/steven-tyler-says-hes-spent-6-million?r=hjhbr&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Alcohol is water soluble. It’s absorbed in the blood.
Marijuana and other drugs are fat soluble; they are absorbed by the brain and sex organs.
They are not the same.
now don't go gettin' scientific with these pot guys - their brains don't work that way ;-)
Every pothead I know is hopeless. THC seems to create paranoia and irrational reactions.
This is false...
Viewing Strangers that Tell A Vision creates stupidity lessening the ability to think..
alcohol is a poison and CNS depressant. It's a dangerous substance to put in your body and damages your liver and kidnehys.
The Queen Mother loved her gin : and lived to well over 100.
True and so is weed.
you are a retard.
All the stupid crap most people do is alcohol related. Booze still warps the brain function days later when physically sober but not mentally sober.
Come up Seattle pot head. 98% of the people that consume alcohol do it with their meals and it is just part of their food scene.
98% seems exaggerated but drinking like you lay out is definitely the healthy way to do it. People drink all the time in France and starting young. But it is small amounts with meals and it seems to have no ill effects. Maybe even good ones.
There are studies that moderate drinking improved health outcomes.
must agree with you this time Elagabalus... if it were 98% then there wouldn't be so many bars and dives out there that don't server food but dish out the booze.
"Steven Tyler just said he’s Spent $6 Million on Cocaine in his Lifetime"
https://ragnarforseti.substack.com/p/steven-tyler-says-hes-spent-6-million?r=hjhbr&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Are you comparing Cocaine used by a millionaire to cannabis psychosis? Just checking..
I'll do whatever the hell I want buddy.
Also, thanks for checking in on me.
#BlessYourHeart
Yep. Alcohol is responsible for how many deaths, broken homes, medical costs, etc? Not to mention it affects EVERY cell in our bodies, so probably the worst drug put there overall. Bern arrested twice in my early life, both were in a drunken rage. Since my last arrest in 85 I haven't touched the shit. Made the front page of both the new haven times and Bridgeport Post due to the injuries I caused the guy that started it.
Oh, jury, NOT GUILTY on all charges thankfully. Again the booze or I woulda laughed at the jerk and walked away.
Your escapade didn't make the New Haven Register? 😝 Just teasing. I used to live 20 minutes from New Haven. Born and raised in CT, couldn't afford to retire there. Congrats on your sobriety.
So let's add loco weed to the mix, it's all over anyway.
Like it or not, alcohol is part of our diet and our culture, and always has been. It's never going away and it never will. Moreover, unlike marijuana, alcohol is easily metabolized and doesn't stay in your system affecting your judgment and perceptions of the world for over 48 hours
If the prohibition Karen's had existed during Medieval times, humans would likely be extinct as the discovery of alcohol sanitizing water would not been put to use.
but nobody is telling youth and people alcohol is safe and no big deal. the awareness is out
but to be honest alcohol and guns have been around forever you know what’s new is the anti-depressant the anti-anxiety combined with increased marijuana use I guarantee you this is the biggest problem combined with broken families isolation depression in general kids should be out playing they should be playing sports exercising not being put on prescribed drugs that aren’t even tested on people under 18 to begin with. and it’s the increase in the THC with the new wave pot shops and available marijuana that’s the problem people figure it out it’s causing psychosis and violence like no other you’re the one saying weed mellows people out that’s why we’ve got to get the word out that’s not true anymore that it’s no longer 8% THC it’s up to 80% in some cases with oils and vapes
Agree, it’s all bad. Definitely a combination of abuse in different areas. Mental health is a huge challenge, especially for parents, and prescribing physicians. It’s easy to say “ get your kids into sports, let them play outside,” when reality is that parents work a lot and kids unattended for too long create a problem. It’s just reality. And gov. is moving to approve pot nationally. That only increases black market because of lower prices. Mix in the fentanyl issue & our kids are looking at some serious hardship. Maybe not all that try it, but 1/6 will develop psychosis from heavy pot use. Our country is already struggling to keep our kids in school & succeed.
The only way to win this is to get the kids to understand they’re being “played”. Their addiction for profit pawns & their money is lining pockets of uncaring souls by using pot, vapes, & edibles w/ high THC. Plus, the regulations with cannabis growers & pesticides is a joke. They are basically self- governing. We are understaffed in Wa. & probably everywhere else in this industry. Decriminalizing is also opening door for more black market. Look at Cali. They can’t close fake stores fast enough to keep up w/ new ones popping up. They don’t even have to sell on the streets anymore. It’s a mess. Colorado is best state for documenting their downfall. More crime, more homeless, more traffic fatalities, more kids addicted, more negative everything since pot was approved. Coincidence? ALL of it? That’s not what residents there say. Not even close.
I find it incomprehensible that whilst millions of people use alcohol responsibly, in the US you can drive a car, get married, become a parent and everything else grown ups do BUT you can't drink alcohol until twenty-one!
We humans ENJOY being stimulated with stuff so what else are the kids going to do but - drugs?
Prohibition was GREAT for organised crime - seems the current policy is still working, especially for the young.
Many things in life are bad for us in excess (tobacco, food, sex, gambling, power...) whilst often a little of what you fancy does you good, physically and mentally.
Whatever subject you can think of there will always be a minority who respond badly, so should we all do absolutely nothing at all, just in case?
I do think prohibitions tend to make problems worse. The part I’m concerned about is the lack of education, or outright encouraging destructive behaviors. This applies to all the things you mention - drugs, alcohol, sex, food, gambling, tobacco, power. In the US we do a pretty good job of acknowledging tobacco and, for adults alcohol, and even gambling. In Europe kids are taught responsible alcohol habits from a young age, and because access is always there, being the driver or only drinking a reasonable amount is easier - there will still be alcohol tomorrow if your 16 or 18.
We do a horrendous job of the others here. Obese women are on the pages of every fitness magazine and pointing out being obese is not healthy results in hostile accusations of “fat shaming.” We are sexualizing little kids, detaching them from reality, pushing “affirmative care” which is a gentler way of saying child sterilization and genital mutilation, discouraging healthy committed sexual relationships while encouraging teenagers to watch a bunch of porn with all its violence and unrealistic approach to sex.
With pot we don’t educate, we present it as a “better” alternative to alcohol (which it’s not). Many literally believe there is no downside to daily consumption of weed or edibles.
We shouldn’t do nothing, but we should stop approaching every destructive behavior or habit as falling into some good v evil category. It detached people from reality and sends them into spirals of denial about cause and effect. This applies to dangerous big pharma subscription plans as well.
By science we know that the frontal lobe of young people does not fully develop until after the teenage years. The frontal lobes is responsible for reason and decision-making. The lack of a fully developed frontal lobe is why 20-something people make great soldiers but it takes 30 and 40-something people to make effective senior officers.
For this reason I am not in favor of the drinking age being lowered. And I would prefer that the voting age also be raised to 21.
True Frank. But what evidence is there that having a beer as a teen causes any lasting or negative effect on the brain? We are pretty resilliant.
And as for voting, most people do not have a Scooby Doo about what they are voting for! If it made any difference at all to the real powers it would matter! It doesn't, so they allow it, as a fig leaf to give the illusion we are in charge. We're not!
Well. It is a mind altering drug and makes people do stupid things. But I guess as a society we accept the risk.
Same conversation should be had for weed.
"Steven Tyler just said he’s Spent $6 Million on Cocaine in his Lifetime"
https://ragnarforseti.substack.com/p/steven-tyler-says-hes-spent-6-million?r=hjhbr&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
exactly.
"Steven Tyler just said he’s Spent $6 Million on Cocaine in his Lifetime"
https://ragnarforseti.substack.com/p/steven-tyler-says-hes-spent-6-million?r=hjhbr&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Just look at him - perhaps the coke explains his wild wardrobe and face?
I'm partially blind. Can you describe 'his wild wardrobe and face?'
K thanks bye
you are spamming. stop it.
What are you a broken fucking record?! For Steven Tyler 6 million bucks to drop in the bucket so what’s your fucking point?!
VIDEO RESPONSE:
https://tenor.com/view/are-you-talking-to-me-i-know-youre-not-not-talking-to-me-gif-15422519
Why?
BS. Says a likely potter.
Alcohol. Aka "ethanol" is naturally occurring in food. In fact, it is part of our culinary practices and has been since human history. A fruit or grain falls to the ground, enzymes turn the starches into sugars and yeast eat the sugars and produce ethanol and other alcohols. Most people can metabolize it fine. Like anything it can be abused.
However, cannabis has a psychotic effect for heavy and long-term users. It is not a food... it is only a recreational drug. It has some beneficial properties... mostly the CBD... but it is also a dangerous drug at the high concentration levels of THC produced today. I know several young men that have been hospitalized with psychotic issues after heavy and consistent use.
Spoken like a true millennial…
I spent the last 6 years of my police career as a homicide detective where I was the lead investigator or assisting on close to a hundred homicides, countless suicides and accidental overdose deaths. In the homicides, most victims and suspects were black males in their teens and early twenties. The most common cultural trait among the majority of the cases was heavy marijuana use. In many of the cases the suspects admitted during interviews that they had just "smoked a blunt" (a blunt is a tobacco cigar wrapper stuffed with marijuana) before the murder occurred. Alcohol use is also prevalent, but the daily, continuous use of marijuana is ubiquitous in black gang culture. I have not read Alex's book, but based upon my personal experience, I find correlation and causation.
Next you'll be blaming it on the rap music!
See what I mean?
Judging by what we know of the guy his problems started long before he even knew what weed was...
shhh don't disrupt the narrative
Can you elaborate? Do we know when he started on drugs, what age? His mother apparently has been using them for a long time, so wouldn't surprise he started at a young age. One report mentioned a middle school friend who said he was a nice young man until eighth grade, when he changed-- usually a tell-tale sign of drug use.
Others were saying he was getting into fights since middle school and he was bullied for a lisp. In short, he was never properly socialized. That seems like more of an obvious contributor than he smoked weed.
Yeah... getting bullied for a lisp will make you shoot your GMA in the face and then go do the same to little kids.
Did you miss the point entirely about it being a larger contributing factor than smoking weed? When was the last time the popular kid shot up a school? I would bet you 1000 bucks right now 95% of people could pick mass shooters out of a lineup with perfect accuracy... Weed smokers, not so much....
Further to the point, I bet every popular kid at the HS he went to has smoked weed. Yet it just happened to be the weird as fuck kid who was socially outcast who shot up a school.
Drug use or “psychosis” from drug use.
How bout woke culture induced psychosis? Weed and guns been around for a long time without this many school shootings. Cant say the same of wokism.
I’ve been fortunate to never have a strong craving or addiction to drugs/alcohol. My personal experience with cannabis is hyper-paranoia, anxiety, coupled with a foul mood. Obviously many people have a different experience, however I can’t believe that these are beneficial in anyway. I do not think it helps cognitive ability, motivation, ambition, physical training. People like to do it so make it more available, period. Unfortunately I do think pot had a direct impact on his actions. Psychologically unstable mixed with cannabis can spell trouble.
So now because of this evil dude, we have to give up guns and the herb?? Everyone's chemistry is different and yours did not respond well to the type you consumed. There are many different cultivars that have a multitude of terpine and cannabinoid profiles which affects everyone differently. Just because this kid had it in his system, didn't mean it caused the event. His mental health or spiritual take over from a demonic being would be my first choice. Get to the root of the issue.
VIDEO RESPONSE
https://tenor.com/view/chuu-gun-loona-girlboss-girl-gif-20619222
Fortunate?!? You crazy brah.
"Steven Tyler just said he’s Spent $6 Million on Cocaine in his Lifetime"
https://ragnarforseti.substack.com/p/steven-tyler-says-hes-spent-6-million?r=hjhbr&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Agree. Using common sense.
Yet: All you presented were anecdotes. Spooner MD Makes a fair point. Presumably, in your book you present the data and metadata? Deeply explore it?
PS: Many if these shootings have happened in the morning. Therefore we should ban school before noon. That’s the kind of idea mere anecdotal evidence produces. Anecdotes should be used to create hypotheses to explore, which MAY result in solid evidence.
All of these shootings took place in gun free zones. Perhaps there is a correlation.
They are also drug free zones.
But were they psychosis free zones?
I recommend reading the book! Lots of studies and data in it!
This happens every single time Alex makes a marijuana post
The potheads whine and gnash their teeth and ignore the argument made in the book. They’re never gonna read it.
I guess the point of stirring up this controversy occasionally is to pique the interest of those who aren’t potheads
Because reality exists for those who enjoy pot, and have with so many others, and not once seen it. But we see it routinely after friends drink alcohol. And we see lots of depressed and anxious children because we've created a world of anti-liberty, never-ending wars and violence done to "protect our interests" in other people's countries, and use debt and inflation to rob us of our wealth, our prior desire to be charitable rather than dependent on government handouts, etc.
alcohol makes people do bad things and it still legal? the law was not implemented to put people in boxes so they cant hurt themselves. its not even plausible to put people in prison for using plants. in fact its a waste of money. give me any possible way for police to stop people from using plants and ill retract my statements. ok law cuck
Well I personally don't have to read the book because I have seen it first hand myself. Its a drug and just like any drug there are positive and negative aspects. The LD50 for cannabis is exceptionally high (Benno Hartung et al. (2014) report that the lethal half dose (LD50) for THC in humans is estimated to be around 30 mg/kg)
I still think it should be federally legal for informed consenting adults, nothing in the constitution about what people are and are not allowed to consume. This power is reserved to the states, or the people.
This is the same argument at the core of vax mandates: you either own your person or you are property of the state. And don't even public health me; if that was the case cigarettes would have been banned 30 or more years ago. And that's without starting in on the damage Alcohol abuse causes, or prescription painkillers.
Yet you don't present any. A reason to trust, e.g. John Thompson (who I don't know) over you. I'm *asking* for a data, and yet I'm insulted and accused of 5 things including *ignoring* it. Batty arguments out bullshitters. Their credibility is a wet patty.
“Studying this relationship for 40 years”? So you’re saying there is a direct relationship to the smoking of cannabis and the killing of individuals? This board-certified neurologist would love to read a couple of the papers that would support your contention.
Well, as a psychiatry provider, working in the prison, This board certified gal can tell you there is a very direct link to drugs and crimes to include murder. There would be nare be a need for prisons if drugs were eradicated. People are dangerous on drugs and it changes the brain..not talking occasional use. Try the once great state of Oregon..now a disaster, crime increased. Mostly drugs related.
"Caffeine is a drug. Alcohol is a drug. You have used these drugs. Therefore you're a murderer."
-an argument as (il-)logical as Jacqueline's
I have Alex's book. Extremely unconvincing.
If you are indeed a "board certified neurologist" I'm sure you are familiar with the connection between mental health issues and heavy cannabis use.
Alex, usually I appreciate your critical thinking skills. In this case they are lacking. I spent a twenty-six-year career as a mental health professional. I helped care for many thousands of mentally ill patients. Not one of them was ever diagnosed with a cannabis induced psychosis. At worst some previously diagnosed psychotic patients were noted to have poor reactions to smoking cannabis, but this was similar to the poor results from consuming alcohol. Interesting how you will dismiss studies that show glowing results for mRNA vaccines but seem eager to accept these studies to which you now refer. They are at odds with the numerous studies that do not lead to this conclusion. A logical conclusion from those who understand mental illness is that the mentally ill nearly universally have a tendency to self-medicate, which raises the question whether the cannabis led to the psychosis or was the individual's way of dealing with a pre-existing underlying psychosis. Just blaming the pot is far too simplistic and is a hallmark of the misinformed or the idealogue.
Anyone rational enough to reject this Reefer Madness Redux should check LewRockwell.com today.
Richard White points out the unconstitutional and evil intent of prohibition of substances, and the historic disasters that result from such totalitarian crapola.
Did you know that in 17th century Constantinople a second offense for coffee possession earned a Death Sentence?
Here is a clue for everyone: regardless if it is Pot or actual narcotics, no one's usage is any of your concern. Mind your own business.
"Here is a clue for everyone: regardless if it is Pot or actual narcotics, no one's usage is any of your concern. Mind your own business."
It would be if the user was on an island or isolated from others. But we all have to interact in the public sphere. And therein lies the rub.
Here is a more important clue:
Tomorrow is election day.
More Americans died last year from Fentanyl than in the entire Viet Nam. conflict.
Rather than seek a return to the Golden Years of Reefer Madness when one could spend years in prison for smoking a green cigarette instead of a brown one, why not do something positive for America and vote the sick and twisted Leftys that are destroying our country with Pharma and Marxism?
Amazing to me that anyone aware enough to read Substack doesn't know all this unadulterated crapola about pot is just distraction from the reality that the common denominator in these shootings is psychiatric drugging, and NOT pot smoking..
I have known pot smokers since I was a teen, I am 66 now, and I have yet to meet my first pot freak out.
It's possible to get way too high on any intoxicant, but it is not a significant problem, it is a significant distraction.
Only a certain segment of society finds minding their own business an abrasive expectation.
Until the increased use has social costs. Then it is our business.
Such boneheaded ignorance. The " Social Costs" come from criminalization, and no, there is no point at which your inability to mind your own business becomes a virtue.
People steal to support their habit because criminalization supports 20,000 percent mark ups for the criminal, who is encouraged by the obscene overvaluation to adulterate and create increasingly addictive versions like Crack and Fentanyl, and the overdoses that inevitably follow when drugs are insufficiently adulterated and users take their regular dose which is really many times the normal dose.
It will be a boon to mankind if people like you ever learn to clean up your own backyard.
There is no point at which your inability to mind your own business becomes a virtue, regardless of your self righteous self delusion.
Well, that does not seem to be the case as decriminalization data is rolling in. https://www.westernjournal.com/state-officials-admit-drug-decriminalization-massive-failure-overdoses-increasing-drastic-rates/. If society wants to limit something it should first ridicule it, then shame it, then make a law against it if the first two do not work. Legalizing something harmful always increases it. Increases in pot use are also fueling the woke nightmare because very liberal people, many of whom are mentally ill already are much more likely to abuse cannabis. The social costs from pot use are harming my family.
Yes. My comments said similar stuff but was not so eloquent. I did provide a link to another substack writer who said very similar things as you do. Thanks for speaking out.
You're welcome, Greg. I don't often comment anymore as too many seek to only foist their views on others without actually listening to other's points of view. But the undercurrent of rather foolish noise attempting to link the recent shooter to cannabis use as a source of causality has prompted my response. This person obviously had far deeper problems than an affinity for smoke. To suggest otherwise is nothing short of absurd and has zero consensus within the scientific or medical communities.
Zero proof he ever smoked a joint, denial from his grandpa.
Damn. Well said wow.
Thank you, Jacob. I am a fan of actual science, not the cherrypicked study variety.
"Glowing results for mRNA vaccines'...
BREAKING UPDATE from Sparta:
https://tenor.com/view/gtfo-300-gif-5494186
I did not say that I believed these glowing results, simply pointed out that Alex was touting some studies while harpooning others. I am a very big skeptic of mRNA vaccines until they have been furthered tested and shown to be safe in reality and not only in the land of wishing.
Pop Quiz: When was the first person ever injected with mRNA on US soil?
I know that the first human to be injected with an Mrna vaccine was reported to be in 2013. Where it occurred doesn't really concern me. Your point?
Reading comprehension on the low side?
I sorry to hear that Greg.
Oh you're asking me?
What do you consider low?
The simple fact you did not understand the article you attacked. he had to use small words in his reply to maybe get you to understand what he was actually saying. And then your continued use of your "pop quiz". Annoying to say the least.
Since the 70's, psychiatrists have opined of a connection between pot and psychoses. The limited explanation was that it was thought to induce psychosis is susceptible persons. I witnessed a psychotic break in a person who was smoking to excess when I was 21. Maybe the street pot was laced with a hallucinagenic.
Amazing how you punch drinkers always come back to a useless shot that is not a vaccination. You have no idea what these kids are smoking today for THC. Maybe you should get another booster OR educate yourself on what the professionals are saying.
You have less than no idea what I know. You also aren't even intelligent enough to read through an entire thread before making a fool out of yourself. Nowhere in my comment did I endorse the jab, and in a subsequent comment I clarified for another with similar reading comprehension deficiencies to yourself, not that it was necessary for anyone with even average English skills.
Always so angry but never surprising. More insults always help our country. Do you!!
You are quite incapable of incurring any wrath from me with your feeble taunts. My career helped many thousands of the most hurting and forgotten in society, with hardly a word of thanks from any in "our country" to those of us who served in one of the toughest fields on Earth.
he/she/they/it need to smoke a joint a chill the f out..
I bet you don't know what the 'Best Marijuana Strain' is?
(It's Sour Diesel)
I suppose if you're a sativa fan, then you might argue that case. But there is not a definitive "best" strain. That completely depends on the individual and how that person reacts to the unique compound signature of each strain. Sour Diesel is good, GMO is better. But that is completely subjective.
'Quotations' used as this is merely a matter of opinion...
(Basically fact tho)
Better still, learn to mind your own business. The " professionals" are shills, and their ravings are devoid of value.
Shit's fantastic, right?
(Stuff the kids are smoking)
Not so fantastic for the adults that have to watch them derail but you do you.
Alex makes s big to do over NYT removing the unproven pot claim. That might have something to do with the shooters grandfather's insistence that as a convicted drug felon, he knows what it looks like and his grandson was not a pothead.
The universal common denominator of mass shooters is Shrink Dope, not weed.
That is where the real devastation comes from.
Ever heard a preacher lie and say smoking weed is sorcery?
Sorcery is using drugs to control someone else, i.e. Shrink Dope.
Damn straight I'll do whatever the hell I want.
(Thank you for the advice, it's appreciated)
https://youtu.be/bI2PdskxE_s
I am also a mental health professional, since 1989. I have seen a gradual shift in how doctors and therapists perceive marijuana use from problem behavior to normalization. This occurs with many social maladies in our do your own thing culture. Doctors aren't going to diagnose marijuana induced psychosis because it requires one to presume linear causality. I would never make such a diagnosis myself. I have seen dozens of teens over the years that got messed up from pot and they were always also caught up in a myriad of other problems. Some of those kids had psychotic episodes. Almost all of the teens with these kind of drug and behavioral problems had marijuana use in their repertoires. We treat the whole person and the family from the perspective of multi-causality, so I believe this OP has offered a red herring argument.
I recently had a grandparent sharing her medical pot with her grandchild who later stole it and brought it to school via brownies that got people sick. I had a guy with long term a-motivational syndrome that was affected by pot and I found out his enabling parent was using with him then complaining the guy would not do anything. The parent had a "It's just marijuana" attitude he brought with him from his 1970's lifestyle. Unfortunately, that attitude has now permeated the culture. I had a young guy, reclusive and abusive toward him mom, using pot at home because mom was liberal and thought it was "just pot".
I did not know Alex was a cannabis realist until I read this article. I do know he is a narrative buster. Thankfully there are a few left.
Afroman (multimillionaire) chimes in via VIDEO:
https://youtu.be/WeYsTmIzjkw
Out of curiosity:
1. Did they run double blind control trials to check if administering THC makes people *commit crimes*?
2. Did they control the amount of drug intake in both arms 24h/day?
(and just to clarify, I am only curious: Even if they did, there is no moral justification to criminalize pre crime. So there is no moral justification to criminalize drugs. *ANY* drugs.)
Try working in mental health in Oregon and see the effects of drug use. It is so horrific there no one can even tolerate it. If you don't think heroin and meth should be criminalized, your opinion, but a very wrong one.
I am not saying that drugs are good or advisable. I don't even do drugs. All I am saying is that it requires an abject amount of authoritarianism to send the police to possibly kill other adults just because these other adults chose to consume a given substance that a "know-all" little tyrant does not like. My point is: Who are you to tell other people how to live their own lives?
Does this under the quote "if it feels good do it?"
Well I got a ways to go to get to 40 years of studying but the first 25 or so have been fantastic. You're welcome.
I am in the field. Drugs damage the brain. See it every day THC, alcohol included.
What kinda field? Baseball? Cornfield?
If you want to get rescued you we're gonna need you to be more specific.
Outfield. Been there my whole life. No weed needed.
Nobody 'needs weed' you imbecile...
Grow up.
Be better.
No more mistakes.
No more excuses.
Actually maybe I'm wrong... I kinda need some right now...
Let's check with an expert
https://tenor.com/view/cause-we-need-it-snoop-dogg-cameo-its-vital-its-essential-gif-18006776
Don't send her to the cornfield, PLEEZ!!
I'm sorry. I'm not impressed. We just finished with a bunch of people telling us to believe them about Covid because they are EXPERTS. And now there's a new claim to expertise based on nothing that I can see.
I do mentally challenging work in math, physics and computers. I have smoked for many years. Strangely my abilities have increased substantially as I age, when normally these abilities degrade with age. Why should I throw away my personal experience because somebody that makes money saying pot is bad says POT IS BAD.
We've all been here before. At least include a link to a paper, assuming you read any of those.
Either you smoke occasionally which is not what most people would talk about when they are talking about the disaster of the drug culture. Or your brain believes it is doing well when it is not, which is the allure or one could say trickery of drugs. Hmm maybe your skills are enhanced because you have expericence. I work with chronic drug users the observe the effects on the brain all day. I attempt to really make a difference but once those drugs get hold, not much helps as one could see with the current situation. Intelligence does not need a "paper" for everything. Defending MJ is concerning. I drink wine sometimes. Do I know it can be bad. Absolutely, can't defend it. Prison is full of alcohol, cannabis addicts and by far the worst Heroin and meth. But with all due respect, if it is okay for you and you are doing well , then be okay with that. It is not okay for alot of other folks. Same with alcohol. No defending meth and heroin ever, way too addictive..way too much death and destruction. :)
I think practice has a good deal to do with being able to smoke and still do intellectual work. I didn't smoke in high school which is where I learned the basis for all these skills. I wouldn't recommend smoking for a high schooler who wants to learn.
For me, the main side effect of pot is a kind of amnesia while high. If you keep your train of thought you can think well. But it is easy to forget what you were doing, so having a reminder on paper definitely is helpful.
But what concerns me is all this judgmentalism about other people's lives. I have no problem that people make different decisions than me. I don't need to judge them. I have my own life and my own interests that satisfy me. I prefer to support other people in their endeavors. I only critique in urgent situations or when asked.
The French essayist Montaigne had a great slogan: "What do I know about it?" In fact, he was very well educated and he knew a lot. But he kept his humility.
Interesting. I find both our experiences to be very similar. Your point about keeping one's train of thought is instructive, especially when compared to that of a person imbibing alcohol. I have found that condition causes even greater deficits in concentration.
Agree. I think it is easy to be judgemental and critical and more challenging to think abstractly and ponder where someone else might be coming from. It is likely that judgment often arises from a true desire to help others but may be done incorrently or with arrogance. Of course, we are called on occasion to give judgement or critique and at times, it is surely needed. I do hope that we can all be more supportive to each other in the world. I am constantly working on my attitude and always remember,
William Shakespeare
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool" :)
Lots of different kinds of people smoke weed. Most of the ones I know were not violent and none of them were mass killers. There were some evil fuckers among those people, but it wasn't the weed that made them evil. In fact it was weed that made them tolerable.
That's why I just stopped associating with people that did drugs all together.
Not all weed are violence, but all violence are weeds
ah yes.. we've found our philosopher... well done.
Weed? Who's talking about weed? See-> https://twitter.com/NannaSon33/status/1527719599927615488?s=20&t=_dhtFCHRobh6RAjcOak9LQ
soooo the grifters that have been drugging the single-digit aged elementary school children? those ones?
Alex, you replied with a logical fallacy called an "appeal to authority." Seriously, please stop writing on topics you don't understand or can't debate directly with data and facts like you did the vax. Novice mistake.
I was a real supporter of Alex initially but as time has gone on he has revealed himself to use the same arguing tactics that the very people he has gone up against use all the time. I am beginning to believe he hasn't come to his views on the pandemic because of some dedication to truth but for some other reason which perhaps I'll never know. He truly isn't committed to truth, honest debate, the constitution, etc. He runs on his emotions more than most men.
The cannabis rationalizers are everywhere. They have an argument for everything. It is in their playbook. "How about alcohol"? "Everybody does it". "It is the only thing that ever helped my seizures". "it is just a plant". "My body my choice". On and on.
Having arguments is good. Do anti-pot people have an argument beyond bias? "Read the book!!" you say. Because you actually don't remember any of it? Nobody has giving an example of a study that shows pot is bad. Nobody has any evidence. So why should people that have years of experience believe you? And the weirdest thing is that people go from criticizing the covid response to doing what they criticize, just this time with pot.
MInd your own business. Personal responsibility.
Read an anti marijuana book?
https://tenor.com/view/sad-upset-uncontrollable-will-ferrell-gif-15193678
Don't bitch about the cartels... They're risking their livelihood to provide happiness to humanity... It might even be better with them running the show...
Check out the marijuana taxes in Massachusetts...hoo boy.
I want every substance legalized.
I want tanks and aircraft carriers in my militia...
https://tenor.com/view/told-you-how-about-that-how-bout-dat-gif-12008376
Yeah. This is one of those touchy subjects. It always makes people really defensive even if you show them there’s a clear link between pot use and schizophrenia. Sure, that’s not everyone, but if they had known there was a fairly strong link to schizophrenia, would they have ever started using?
Jesus was a schizophrenic
#FACT
As Alex said, some of these kids are misperceiving social situations and resorting to violence. We see a lot of this is gang culture too.
I wonder how many of the people who are anti-pot are also old school alcoholics. I hear the bitterness of alcoholics.
are these the researchers that say the shots are safe and effective?
just saying this research conflicts with like everyone's life observations. have you ever thought that weed might effect the business model of some other product? who is funding these researchers? what other things have they researched?
i don't know the answers but when someone says something like this i sure have a lots of follow up questions.
As before, I ask you to forward at least 2 peer reviewed articles from NLM that support your supposition: that cannabis directly causes a person to be paranoid leading to murder of others. My argument is simply there are too many variables involved in the paranoid person to single out cannabis as causative.
can they show even one article? This is equivalent to reefer madness. Is that their source?
alex has no evidence to support his claims. He thinks that we trust his opinions because we listen to what he says about vaccines.
What he does not understand is that for vaccines he has the evidence to support his claims. This is why we listen. No one cares about his (or anyone else's) unsubstantiated opinions, really...
Well said
Unfortunately, even his vaccine knowledge is limited or erroneous.
Same as for everyone: What's the evidence that supports your claims?
Read below. I have studied vaccine "Science" for over 15 years. Far longer than Alex.
What's the most unfortunate part about "his vaccine knowledge?"
Be specific because I'm taking notes...
https://giphy.com/gifs/the-office-ryan-bj-novak-9PMC8BD8b2AaA
A quickie: He believes a unique pathogen with multiple variants is/was causing massive worldwide deaths even tho it was never even isolated and was not even used in the Fake PCR tests. He buys into the viral mumbo jumbo of Big Pharma and thinks smallpox was ended by a "Good" vaccine. and on and on and on...
So ban all the things?
Tell me more about automobile, alcohol & obesity deaths...
Do you think we should regulate people's daily intake of calories too?
mRNA deaths? How about tobacco? Should we trust the Government to make our decisions for us or should people just shut the hell up and leave everyone alone?
I'd be curious. I suspect that they have a lot of weak studies with limited results. Studies aren't additive. 10 studies with a probability of .1 are not equivalent to one with p=.01.
A continuation of Reefer Madness.
You're a fool
There have always been some people who experience paranoia with cannabis usage and paranoia is not, as I understand it, associated with a balanced psyche. I have seen personally, and experienced firsthand, the direct cause and effect of cannabis and paranoia. Maybe it doesn't make every user a psychopath, but one in a hundred is enough to wreak havoc in a community.
Perhaps you are just finding people who are paranoid then using marijuana.
No actually I'm talking about people who are not paranoid until they use marijuana. Granted most of them are just paranoid about being busted by the police or their parents etc. But perhaps there are those whose psyches are more delicate, sensitive or fragile and can be damaged to some greater or lesser degree.
These gentle and delicate psyches are likely more programmable and broken by woke culture, which they immerse themselves in, than anything else.
I suppose anything can happen to some. I mean, a peanut kills some, and many cannot drink milk or eat wheat without ill effects.
Paranoia can definitely be seen with what physicians call cannabis intoxication. Other symptoms can include anxiety, dysphoria, panic, hallucinations, grandiosity, and other signs and symptoms of paranoia. One can also have psychomotor dysfunction and yet not be aware of it. I simply object to the suggestion that cannabis is a cause of paranoia that leads to aggressive behavior that leads to the killing of human beings. Being paranoid is not the same as planning to kill. Psychopaths will kill with or without cannabis. because some psychopaths are found to have cannabis in their bloodstream does not prove cause-and-effect. That is my argument with Mr. Berenson.
And Mr Berenson isn't really arguing back, with data. Nor is anyone else, except by putting up and knocking down straw men. Because you're right.
3/100 is about the norm
3/100?? ...With or without,
Xbox addiction
Anti-Social media
Hollywood Purge movies and the rest of the garbage.
MSM mantra of, "IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS ON THE EVENING NEWS!"
Good point! I just recall that on numerous occasions Jordan Peterson relays the statistic that psychopaths (congenital) never really make up more than 4% of a society.
Identified and institutionalized psychopaths makeup 0% of society. But Democrats don't want to go there.
With the potential for triple the havoc. next thing you know you have Chicago on Saturday night.
ChiCongo!
I find it hilarious how people tell well educated people to not confuse correlation and causation. As if nobody has ever considered that. Usually, people who spew out that line are people who are finding reasons to resist the data.
It's hard to accept the data when the data doesn't agree with our preconception, which is one reason people like Fauci, Walensky, Offit and others are refusing to accept the data showing that these covid (non) vaccines are complete and total bullshit.
I certainly agree with your comments about Dr. Fauci. However, it has always puzzled me how even smart people are unwilling to really look into what the root cause was of an important effect. Even smart people can be very loose and undisciplined in their commentary on subjects for which they may have some emotional or political reason for voicing them. I simply ask Mr. Berenson for peer reviewed articles from the national library of medicine that demonstrate clearly an association between cannabis ingestion or inhalation that lead people to paranoia that leads them to kill people. Paranoia does not imply future murder. As I mentioned in another note psychopaths can kill with or without any illicit drug on board. My question regarding the murder of those children is: could he possibly have been a psychopath? That is as reasonable question as claiming that cannabis caused him to kill people.
It’s a viable criticism of Alex’s hypothesis. He’s pointed to psychosis as the driver and named bit 1 of a hundred changes in the past 1-2 decades that may contribute to an increase rate of such. “The data” is epidemiological goo. It is correlative by nature of course. Thus cannot prove causation.
You are well educated so basic principles of correct reasoning dont apply to you? Knowing something in the abstract doesn't mean you apply it, yourself being an example. It is fine by you to make unjustified conclusions when they are YOUR conclusions, eh?
Alex is a well-trained award winning journalist. Use your head. Do you really think that as part of his critical thinking process he wouldn't consider that?
I know I do. It's one of the very first considerations of anyone conducting research. It's not abstract. It's part of the job.
Also, if you are referring to my conclusion that the covid (non) vaccines are not only useless but can come with side effects like death, then I can only say to you (without being able to prove it) that I have spent countless hours studying the topic. IMHO (yes it is my opinion) it is Walensky, Fauci, et al who have lied to you.
Just one piece of evidence among many. This is from the NIH and it was published early on. They knew all along that the non-vaccines were worthless.
Read it (absolute risk versus relative risk)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996517/pdf/medicina-57-00199.pdf
I agree the vaccines are worthless. But saying I should believe Alex because of his supposed expertise is just more of the same BS that brought us the vaccine. I think he is wrong about ivermectin too. There are plenty of credentialed people who agree with me on both accounts. But more than that: I have a lifetime of experience with people who smoke pot and Alex apparently doesn't. I am going to believe my experience over the small percentage of studies that show problems with pot.
Appeal to authority. Shameful.
He actually addresses that in his piece.
At the concentrations present in the THC oils available today, you lose receptor specificity for Cannabinoid receptors and receptor occupancy in the brain is going to be very different from that of THC in the weed of yesteryear. That’s my GPCR perspective. There are also studies linking dabbing to psychosis. Remember pretty much all of this type of medicine (linking a drug to an unintended outcome) is correlation to some extent.
My point to Alex was it was inappropriate to directly link cannabis to psychosis to murder of an individual. His book concerns himself with the children and as a board-certified neurologist I would agree entirely that young people should not indulge in cannabis because their brains are not fully developed. Of course, I can’t really prove that Point but it makes sense, it’s intuitively sensible. But premorbid personality coupled with a bad home life, loneliness, can lead to drug abuse, and in rare circumstances lead to psychopathic murder such as in the case at the elementary school. Focusing on drug abuse, as Alex seem to have done, ignores all the other variables that lead to a person to have absolutely no compassion for the lives of others and the willingness to pull the trigger.
Totally agree with you. Your initial comment was just too terse to make that point. I don't think it was Alex's point to make that a firm cause and effect judgment on the Texas shooter, but he also wasn't that clear. I find his books and longer articles are more well thought-out than some of his off-the-cuff substack posts. I don't know where you practice geographically, but if you are near urban California areas like I have been for my entire life, you get a heavy dose of really bone-headed pro-Cannabis arguments. It tends to push me toward a knee-jerk response, too.
You have a doctorate, so don't you know the kind of study that allows one to draw conclusions about causation? It is exactly the type of study used in drug approval: blinded randomized controlled studies. In such a study, correlation can be validly interpreted as causation.
Yes, I do. And that type of study has not been done on psychosis with cannabis. Note that I said UNEXPECTED outcomes. The studies you describe, Elagabalus, are looking at expected outcomes. Toxicity studies do not necessarily look at all possible ill effects, which is why most drugs come with a warning "may cause" followed by a list of possible side effects.
Reefer Madness was all the proof of cause and effect ever needed. The gods have cursed conservatives like Apollo cursed Cassandra: being able to see the future (consequences) and always having to speak the truth but never being believed.
Perhaps you're right about the Cassandra curse but when reefer Madness was produced there was scarcely any cannabis in America at all like what is coming out of grow houses today. That movie was much less prophecy than it was propaganda. Today's cannabis is worlds away more potent than most of what was on the streets in the 1930's -1960's.
Lol okay stoner
That was my internal response at first, too. I thought JW Spooner was just throwing a quick pro-weed response back at Alex, too, but he (she?) did elaborate on his argument later in this thread. I don't think JWS expected the comment to be interpreted the way I and many other people here seemed to interpret it. Turns out it wasn't a stoner stance.
Purely sarcasm! Pot turns people in to fools and psychos.
And don't confuse all the THC concentrated variants being developed that alter anyone whose brain hasn't fully developed. The age that we understand brains to develop by is 25. Now, I bet there is a correlation between heavy THC use at an early age, with the ages of the mass shooters. Hmmmm.
When you read facts that make you feel uncomfortable, just smoke a bowl and clear your guns.
the link between pot and violence has been established.. just because it doesn't cause violent behavior in some, doesn't mean it hasn't been shown to cause psychotic violent behavior in others.. it has been proven over and over again, here's the latest study that supports this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4950206/Smoking-cannabis-DOES-make-people-violent.html?offset=6&max=100&jumpTo=comment-245812334#comment-245812334
LOL. Lies. The Daily Mail is not now publishing the results of DBRCT medical studies. It's a lie to claim there's a study that proves cause and effect. But I think this comment adequately debunks this bit of tabloid (which is not about an RCT at all):
>> This article is absolutely disgusting. "Pioneering research has shown". Are you kidding me? You can't be serious. All of [the patients] are schizophrenic, and it is well known that cannabis and schizophrenia are a disastrous mix. I've witnessed it myself. Is this [not] how autistic children and sciatica patients behave when they have ingested cannabis. You are fowl demons misinforming the British public on a miraculous medicine. Did somebody from Big Pharma pay you? Take it from me, and you shouldn't need to, I'm just an ordinary civilian, but get your heads out of your bum holes and in to the 21st century. Utterly barbaric parasites.
on the other hand cause and effect cases are also correlations.
High correlation can mean cause and effect. There's a correlation between high speed and car deaths. Low speed, less deaths. That's cause and effect. Not necessarily the only cause but it impacts the effect.
Correlation CAN mean cause and effect, but it often just means common causes. Or the causation is reversed. Malnutrition in children correlates with broken bones, but neither causes the other. They are both caused by bad parenting. Pot abuse may cause psychosis or PERHAPS people who are beginning to suffer from psychosis may be drawn to overuse pot.
Indeed. Violence grew out of proportion due to unlawful edicts, 5G irradiation, and the lethal injections.
Granted, excessive pot use can cause forms of psychosis, although pot is probably the mildest on the list.
Why do antipot folks seem so grumpy and humorless and angry?
Could not smoking pot lead to violence? I have $10M here for any credentialed scientist who wants to design and run a study guaranteed to give the right results.
How much Science(tm) can YOU afford to buy?
Who are you directing this comment to? You have a real issue with conclusion drawing.. You started your attack in response to my comment, which was merely pointing out that we cannot base conclusions regarding the safety of THC on our observations from the past, when concentrations were so much lower that the mechanism of action and sites of action were completely different. I have a very extensive track record in GPCR signaling (Cannabinoid receptors are GPCRs, short for G-protein-coupled receptor). I then pointed out there are some studies linking extremely concentrated THC (like in dabs) to psychosis-so it is not a far-fetched or unsubstantiated theory, and that the cop-out "correlation is not causation" could be applied to a wide variety of medical observations. You seemed to think this was evidence I don't understand drug studies, with which I Iikely have more hands-on experience than you do, and then jumped to this weird attack on an imaginary grumpy "anti-pot" contingent on this thread. You have no freaking idea what my views on cannabis legislation are. But since you assumed, I will correct you. I personally believe much damage was done by the way medical cannabis was slowly legalized as a work-around to recreational legalization. I am not interested in the reasons for taking this approach and who was opposing it because that is tangential to my argument, which is what the result of that workaround was. If cannabis is viewed as simply recreational, like alcohol, it comes with an understanding that it had down sides and should be moderated. Rolling it out as medical, and then having a massive cannabis lobby spew out nonsense about all of its wonders (most of which are not scientifically substantiated-i.e., reducing anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc.) while simultaneously pushing a narrative than the ONLY reason anyone opposed its legalization was because it was associated with minorities and this was a way to throw minorities in jail, led to a generation getting extremely poor information about what the drug actually does and what its dangers actually are. As a result, people wander around thinking it is as safe as water, in any amount, at any concentration, used with any frequency. Many people develop dependence on it, and some do have a range of life-altering negative consequences, from lack of motivation to increased depression to psychosis. I would argue that this would not happen to the same degree if there wasn't immense pressure to suppress any discussion of possible negatives, with most people-as you do here- dismissing those attempting to raise those points as "antipot and humorless" or worse. I think recreational adult-use only, without going through medical first, would have led to fewer problems. I also think that, given it has uses for palliative care, having health insurance covering it for that situation, would be beneficial. I think blithely ignoring any problems associated with THC is uneducated and damaging. I have more information I can provide to you, regarding its actions in the brain and why different preparations lead to actions in different brain regions, with distinct outcomes, if you are interested.
Sorry, I missed this. I am always interested in actual studies.
I was making a general observaion not directed at you, but my eyes do keep floating up to the big block of text you sent. How would YOU characterize it?
It is unfortunate that our responses are atomized. I was on a good thread talking about strenth of dabs and concentrates. I find them too much as do my friends. They aren't social, you are stunned. Maybe this is why I haven't seen pot psychosis in my world.
Correlation is not causation is a cliche, true, but it IS an essential principle of scientific reasoning. It isn't optional. You can only conclude causation from correlation if the experiment is designed for it. In general this is a double blind randomized controlled experiment. However, certain complex time series techniques have been developed to allow conclusions of causation with data that is gathered in the wild..
No, I was humorless when I smoked pot all day every day. Now I’m fun because I drink instead like a normal person, and everyone loves me!
I came here to write exactly this.
I know two unrelated women, each with 20 year olds, who went from having "normal" boys to them being diagnosed as schizophrenic overnight. No family history. They both spent multiple stints in mental hospitals. Both exhibited violent behavior and did odd things like drilling a hole through a new laptop because it was spying on them. Both chronic pot smokers through high school and college. Both boys' doctors (incl. one neuro at UCLA) said without a doubt, it was tied to marijuana use. This is brain damage, folks.
That is my cousin. I doubt schizophrenia is totally 100 percent inherited. Letś take a look ath the 63 vaccines kids must have before the age of 10.
The only reason I even know about Alex Berenson and his book in the first place is because of what happened to my then 19 year old son a few years back and my need to find answers. He was dabbing high potency weed for a few weeks and ended up with several stints in emergency rooms and mental hospitals diagnosed with cannabis induced psychosis/schizophrenia. Most frightening time of our lives to see our normal, well rounded productive, athlete son set to to embark on his future with a football scholarship become a violent, psychotic requiring multiple 911 calls to the police to our home because of his violent, erratic behavior. He also exhibited typical psychotic behavior thinking he was getting messages sent to him through the television and the fbi was tracking him and at one point thought he might be Jesus. Emergency room doctors, psychiatrists and police immediately understood the cause but so many others refused to believe it could be caused by harmless marijuana or that it must have been because it was laced or he must have had an underlying mental illness that was bound to manifest itself at some point in his life. Here we are a couple years later and thankfully his life is back on track, he is back in college, back to his normal self with no signs of violent tendencies and no signs of mental illness. Thankfully we had good doctors and mental health support who got the diagnosis right and understood the dangers of marijuana for him in particular but most importantly the experience scared him straight and he himself knows to stay away from that dangerous drug. Sadly though the person who referred me to Alex's book did not have the benefit of a support system that understood the dangers of marijuana to adolescents and young men and did not have the same good outcome. Her 24 year old son smoked his medically prescribed marijuana, became psychotic and violent and for no reason bludgeoned his uncle with a hammer in the middle of the night causing him to lose an eye. Her son is now serving a 7 year prison sentence in California. There are plenty of studies that prove the connection between marijuana and violence/psychosis but neither my friend or I need any studies to convince us...we saw it first hand.
Thank you for your posting abs so glad your son is doing well!
Dabbing has always seemed like overkill. I'm happy your son is ok. But this is not what happens to the vast majority of smokers. That is an horrible hammer story too. But I wonder why you are the nexus of so much craziness when others are not.
Not only is your comment rude and gratuitous, I'm pretty sure you know nothing about "what happens to the majority of smokers." You aren't paying attention, you don't read a lot and you're not an expert in anything. I just thought I'd throw those assumptions out there since that's what were doing.
You're wrong--these events are many and increasing every day. I'm sure it's way worse than we know and I find it interesting that the states, then the feds all of a sudden supported legalizing it. It doesn't exist until YOU decide that it's a thing.
Don't you think we'd notice if the vast majority of smokers, tens of millions of people, went psychotic after smoking?
Anyhow, how do you know what I read? How do you know my expertise, which happens to be extensive in the fields I work in? You seem to be the rude and gratuitous one.
I am legitimately wondering why so many people who don't seem to be involved with pot and therefore should have LESS exposure to weird outcomes, seem to have more exposure to weird outcomes. And I hypothesize that people are seeing more insanity in areas where pot smoking is mixed with meth use, since meth is much more associated with mental problems. Otherwise I find it hard to explain why I have known 100s of smokers with zero psychosis.
I'm sorry that having my own experience is so triggering for you. But the fact is I have a lot more first hand evidence than you do. I think Covid should have taught us that "experts" tend to have their own biases. You seem to want to believe pot is horrible. That is your right. If you have had negative experiences in your life around pot than I certainly understand your passion and certainty. But you have no more right to shut me up than I do you.
Al, anyone who is passionate about this subject has most assuredly had experience in their own family that has led us to Alex Berenson's book and other studies helping us make sense of what happened to our family members since like most people and obviously you, we assumed pot was the pot of 20-30 years ago. Your comment about me being at the nexus of so much craziness was a gratuitous jab and I wouldn't say calling my experience and a friend's experience as being at the Nexus. Our son's were some of the unlucky ones vulnerable to the much studied psychotic effects of vaping high potency thc which happens a lot more than you think and as with many psychotics prone to violence. I just posted somewhere on this chain a quote from an ER doctor in the Bronx who, in one month, treated 6 young men who presented at a hospital in New York with psychotic symptoms after vaping high potency THC. That is happening in every hospital in every city and town around the country and it is not all laced and that is a real problem. We are tired of everyone assuming that it must have been laced with something or that psychosis would have happened anyway or we are goodie two shoes with a hidden agenda. This is a problem that will and is getting worse and to stick to the subject matter of this article could be associated with the mental illness or state of mind of this and prior mass shooters so it needs to be taken seriously.
Oh Sorry this comment was meant for Elagabulus...Al I agree with everything you say and see that you are obviously very well informed on the subject
LRoman, I think you are over sensitive. I really DO wonder why some people experience so much chaos around pot, and others, like myself, having been around it for 40+ years, have not experienced any. However, I have not lived in a meth area. I wonder if you have. What over differences could there be? Since I am not harranguing people about drugs perhaps I know more about what people were doing when they succumbed to psychosis. I do know people who lost it over hallucinogens, for example. Though it is rarity. 2 people over 40+ years.
I am perfectly aware that pot potency has gone up. I simply haven't followed it there. I only get the potency I want and I stay away from vapes, concentrates, and dabs. And I don't really know people who do these extreme doses. Maybe that's the explanation of why I haven't seen people self destruct.
Who said the "vast majority of smokers...went psychotic?" Who said "tens of millions?" Nobody did--except you --in a desperate attempt to gaslight everyone. Your statement to the OP that you "wonder why you are the nexus of so much craziness when others are not" was indeed rude and gratuitous. So is your statement, "I am legitimately wondering why so many people who don't seem to be involved with pot and therefore should have LESS exposure to weird outcomes, seem to have more exposure to weird outcome." You are trying to insult the experience of others to the point of calling them crazy in order to justify your own smoking habits. We're the crazy ones right? You've assessed the math of smokers in your circle--great work. You're also a stoner, and it's all good because you're not psychotic. That's your theory against all the biased experts. I guess that fact alone disproves what numerous neurologists and researchers have found over several decades.
No one's trying to shut you up (there's that paranoia) --just calling you out on your BS.
AL, why are you so obnoxious? A previous poster talked about people going psychotic on pot. I said it didn't happen to the majority. Then you said what do I know about the majority? Then I said that such a large impact would be noticeable. Then you said who was talking about the majority. Well, you were, as well as an earlier poster.
As far as "Why should I believe my lying eyes, when a stranger on the internet knows better?": I believe my own experience because contentious questions like the effect of pot, video games, caffeine, wine all lead to many contradictory results and most studies are funded by people who are looking for a specific result and so the people they pay strive to structure the study to get that result, as we have seen with issues around covid.
Our experience, like people aren't dropping dead in the strrets of covid while all these yound athletes are dropping from heart problems after vaccination, actually give us a better basis for decision than the studies do.
Now, of course, if you have experienced all sorts of tragedy around pot, I am surprised by your experience, but I am NOT surprised by your decision to heed it. I just have had a different experience.
Your seem the paranoid one as far my trying to understand why people have such different and consistent experiences around pot. As I said, I suspect that other drugs are in the mix, like meth, that largely explain the difference and why it seems consistent, and therefore these differences are likely regional. This is something that could be explored in a study.
I experienced severe paranoia as a teen in the late 70’s I was smoking pot and chewing stems. One morning after a party driving home I saw a power line hanging low and I thought I was going to run into it. I stopped on the highway got out of the car and realized i was hallucinating hours after my last joint. Thank God that was the last time I partied…. I few times later in life, I tried it again and all that paranoia came back. When I tell friends my thing, they all say O, its the strain, or yea, sometimes it does that. Maybe a small number of Marijuana user have paranoia, but I think like Covid we don’t know the truth. Epoch Times had an article on “cannabinoid hyperemesis” an ER doctor in Pueblo CO. Unfortunately it is behind the paywall. Link is here https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-true-cost-of-marijuana-a-colorado-town-that-went-all-in_3546091.html?utm_source=ai&utm_medium=search Needless to say the authoritarians want to point to guns and not their deliberate destruction of society. Grab your Bible and read what Jesus says about end days. If you want life everlasting Jesus will give you that. If you want to understand what is going on in America today Jesus will show you.
Chewing stems? Hmmm.
Yeah, I was 18 yo…
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Are all those victims anti-Jesus? Or does Jesus accept bad people and letting good people be harmed by them, just as if he couldn't do anything much less care to do anything?
It sounds like you have a mental disorder that marijuana was triggering. I'm glad you have stopped, too.
That was kind of you at the end, but did Jesus make that trigger pull? Nope, that's free will.
As for the Bible, the word is sorcery and the Greek root word is Pharmakia, but you don't want to know and that's your choice. Do you really want a god who will make you do or want to understand something against your will? Neither will JESUS CHRIST. But there is one on the horizon coming soon i am sure you'll love that will force you. This is your choice and everyone else's.
Schizophrenia typically appears in early 20s, just saying. There could be environmental triggers that combined with genetic disposition in these cases, unfortunately. Very sorry for what these families deal with.
I know that’s true but it was the only true indicator. Historically it has been diagnosed as genetic and there is usually and obvious familiar connection/evidence. This is slightly different too- schizophrenia symptoms.
How hard would it be to create a chemical that produced this result?
"environmental triggers" - yep - like heavy weed use.
Sounds like Reefer Madness science to me.
Anybody doubting that pot can cause people to lose their mind are fools. I have seen it first hand with two family members.
If you've seen it, then it must be true. After all, it's clear how you can see use of pot turn people into psychotic killers. All the potheads are coming from the people who prefer to blame pot over a few insane violent actions.
Marijuana use is a common theme among almost every mass shooter. If we are to get an accurate profile of a potential mass shooter that fact is important and needs to be taken seriously especially knowing that studies have made a direct correlation between marijuana use, (high potency thc)and psychosis particularly in some, not all, adolescents and young men. Pot doesn't turn all people into psychotic killers but it can cause psychosis that might make some vulnerable people violent and kill. Marijuana use needs to be included on the bullet point list of the profile of a mass shooter.
Yes, especially the chronic smokers themselves ^^ as if they’re evidence that pot causes no harm. He can’t even keep track of a short thread.
Same here - have good friends - their seemingly normal son had a schizophrenic break several years ago... parent's cannot understand. But we friends who know the truth know that the kid was a heavy weed smoker in college and after - and expect that use continued up until the break. It makes perfect sense to the rest of us, but his parents have never figured it out - won't tell them because it would break the friendship and do no good to their situation... But I am TOTALLY convinced that heavy weed use can and does trigger Schizophrenia.
So this happened at age 20? That is around the age schizophrenia manifests itself.
One young man in my circle of friends suddenly, when he was 19-20, started behaving disruptively. It was never violent or threatening, was religion-based behavior, and soon he had dropped out of Cambridge University, despite being brilliant. He never went near cannabis, hardly touched alcohol, and stayed away from illegal substances.
It had always been there; it just showed up when he reached the critical age.
Yup, that can happen too. It doesn't negate the other though.
But it doesn't support it either.
Anecdotes are the key to getting things wrong.
"Just do something" is what people call for who want simple answers for complex reality.
But the more you make life hard on people via government force, confiscation of their property, Covid lockdowns, telling people they are "non-essential" and destroying childhood and schooling has consequences.
Nothing is definitive. Like smoking didn't cause lung cancer for decades because they couldn't prove causation definitively. That is how pharma gets away with all of their crap, too. But anecdotes are not all that we have. Doctors--neurologists and researchers have been studying this for decades.
Not asking anyone to "do something." Just be aware that this is a problem that has been studied. Kids shouldn't be smoking anything.
Sure, children shouldn't, and yet they do, and they did long before it was legalized for adults. Are we to live our adult lives as children to the state because some mentally challenge children have bad outcomes while millions more seem to use it daily for all of time without psychotic violence outbreaks.
When the science is clear, explaining how marijuana drives psychosis and how that psychosis drives violence (most crazy people at any age do not shoot up children in schools).
Unlike smoking and cancer, this isn't an outcome from high usage over many years (and also is legal for adults to use and kids may or may not use despite it being illegal, and same for alcohol, so much the same), but appears in short order in children. It therefore should be far easier to prove.
Even the NIH only uses the term "possible":
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8672965/
In a nutshell, marijuana harms adolescents in these ways:
Marijuana dependence
Decreased IQ
Increased risk of addiction with higher potency
Increased odds of using other drugs
Death from throwing up
More likely to drop out of school
Possible psychosis and schizophrenia
Decreased fertility rates
Lowered motivation to do things
Possible paranoia and thoughts that others intend to harm you
Health damages
Poor driving skills
Because stable, happy teenagers consume huge amounts of marijuana to the point of psychosis and schizophrenia?
Yes actually. And there is plenty of evidence to back this up. Read berenson’s book.
Berensons' book is good source full of information but he can also do a simple google search. The below excerpts are taken from a google search of "cannabis and youth" and the resulting article from Psychiatry Advisor but there are plenty of scholarly articles to look at too. "Moreover, during adolescence, cannabis is associated with increased psychiatric emergency department (ED) visits and increased risk for psychosis, with some research suggesting that it might as much as double the risk for psychosis and schizophrenia. "In the past month, I have treated 6 young men — adolescents or young adults — who presented to the ED with psychosis induced by vaping high-potency cannabis,” Wilfrid Noel Raby, PhD, MD, Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, told Psychiatry Advisor. Not sure but 6 young men in 1 month from one hospital seems a little more than just "anecdotal" as you mentioned in a prior comment.
This reply was meant for DOK
I took a little liberty in the expression bc it’s a comment, not a book. What I meant was that there was no mental illness history until it manifested itself somewhat out of the blue.
Schizophrenia doesn’t manifest till your 20’s and can skip generations also. You won’t have a history because it manifests later. Also how much of it goes unreported in their youth because either embarrassment or ignoring it. The study’s done on MJ were done to make it look bad because studies are very restricted since it’s federally illegal to administer, use or study on. If you look at the studies they never administer it. They go by the persons testimony on use and do not show what other drugs, alcohol use or prescription medications they are using. The government also has a patent on it which directly states it has health benefits. I started using it in my 40’s after becoming legal in my state for my MS. My husband was a long term user (6+) in his youth along with most his school in a rural area and no one had mental illness after. They all had jobs and went to college. Most of them, not all quit in their 20’s. My husband quit overnight to go into the military and haven’t used since. The studies in Alex’s book are very flawed because one they are using personal testimony on use and not taking any detailed information about medical, alcohol use or prescription history. They do not follow long term before and after use. On prescription meds they directly administer, take detailed history and follow long term. The studies on MJ doesn’t because it is federally illegal to administer, use or study. Also SSRIs at an early age can cause schizophrenia and mental illness more then MJ. All these teen shooters all had been on SSRI’s or a Ritalin. Unfortunately it’s not found out till months after when more details are revealed. Those brain altering prescription drugs causes suicidal tendencies also. Also when these mass shooters started is when those drugs were being administered to kids starting in the 90’s.
Everyone has a history if it is genetic. Period. It doesn't sometimes "skip generations." As a rule, it skips one generation almost always and if it doesn't it's more likely your aunt or uncle will have it but not your mother or father. Your husband wasn't smoking this pot "in his youth"--it's different now. Nor is it "federally illegal" as it once was. Schizophrenia can (usually does) manifest between the ages of 15 and 35, not "til your 20s."
This is tiring. It may or may not have health benefits, in one form or another, and it is still helpful for cancer patients who have pain and nausea. But it is not good for teenagers. Many people can smoke all day long and get away unscathed. But others won't. And yes, other "medications" can cause mental problems too. So can pesticides in our food and water. But when a UCLA neurological surgeon tells a parent that marijuana was a likely cause of a persistent psychotic condition, that he has seen it throughout his career and studied it, I don't think you can categorically dismiss it because you used to smoke pot and it was no big deal.
It’s really not that different. Maybe if you are using oils. Otherwise it’s the same stuff.
Agree, medicating so many youngsters with pharmaceuticals is despicable. But everyone wants the so called magic pill, so psych gives it out like candy. I won't do it. Are there occasions when it might be necessary, sure but no way most of the time.
So, do you think there’s a possible link from 60+ childhood jabs, to increased ADD/ADHD/hyperactivity, etc, as a gateway to SSRIs, and next on to brain chemistry changes, which then enhances drug use uptake? And then are all the cascading events (sure, throw in stress, unstable home life, abuse, depression, anxiety, poverty, and the rest of the kitchen sink) mentioned above going to link to psychosis and right on to cannabis use and violence? Where does “thoughts of suicide” show up? And premeditated violence against others? Hard to see the direct jump right from cannabis to violence. I feel like some important steps are being left out or not considered? Your thoughts? Thx
Just because other drugs can cause mental illness does not mean that MJ does not... there is at least a clear correlation based on the reports here, and with a statistical/medical analysis probably a causation one as well.
Fifteen years from normal to schizophrenic behavior seems like over night to me. if they were my children anyway. My twin boys are 9 now and it's seemed like yesterday that they weighed 6 pounds.
How about SSRI’s or other psychiatric drugs doctors so readily give out?
Or the 30 plus vaccine chemical cocktails jabbed into babies from birth!
Nope. It was the cannabis. Or the Ivermectin he was taking.
No it was probably the menthol
"Kelley had anti-anxiety drugs too; a lot of heavy cannabis users wind up using Xanax or Klonopin to try to tamp down their paranoia."
Alex is definitely, 100% sure that SSRI's, benzodiazepines and other mood-altering drugs that have only been on the market a few decades are *for-sure* NOT to blame for the huge spike in violence over those *same* few decades, but marijuana, which has been consumed for centuries, definitely is at fault.
Alex seems to choose a couple of issues to go over the top with. It undermines his work.
Brilliant!
Of course SSRI's are terrible and Pharma is nothing short of legalized drug dealers. What does this have to do with the harmful effects of chronic marijuana use? Both can be bad.
Judging by the comments here, most potheads suffer from a serious inability to advance a logical argument. Add that to the side effect list.
I was actually making two separate points, but it's hard to take your criticisms seriously when you conflate people that don't believe Marijuana causes psychosis with people that actually take Marijuana.
While drinking gave me migraines in college, weed was everywhere. Not interested as it was illegal. Took the challenge and found I gained 20lbs, hallucinated and realized even the smallest amount would impair judgement with distance while driving. I quit. I won’t engage a conversation with high folks.
It’s a different playing field of reality.
Rejecting God results in a proliferation of evil. A proliferation of evil results in violence. It's a natural progression. We need God back in our country.
Yes, and Allah too.
Makes sense. And no, not every pot head becomes a criminal. But it’s bad for you either way. And I voted for legalization - expecting it would save resources and let some stupid people grow pot in their back yard. Silly me. Instead it is now devolving into a state-sponsored corporate distribution network and taxation scheme. Ultimately, many more people will die as a result. And yes, I know alcohol is even worse blahblah - which is why I don’t drink and tell my kids to stay away from all of this bullshit. It fries brains. Period.
Wtf. Every state referendum was an argument for taxation. They all claimed it would help the schools.
Guess not in this case.
Anything for money!!!
The legalization lobby used cancer stricken people as bait. Nobody wanted all of these young people hooked on pot.
Most people didn't bother to understand the difference between legalization and decriminalization.
Tell your children the truth about 2000 Mules….instead of ignoring it.
You are going off the deep end bro. He's turning into a moron with this Marijuana causes psychosis shit.
Disagree. Have you been around people who smoke everyday?
I and many of my friends smoke everyday and are highly productive contributing members of society. You have to smoke all day everyday to mess yourself up with weed.
All things in moderation.
And that's what kids do...then sit and play violent games online...then because they are kids, immature, reality becomes blurred.!
You could not sound like more of an out of touch boomer if you tried.
Read....https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2003/10/anderson
I smoked weed and played violent video games for the last 20+ years, so did all my friends. We are all now successful adults with families.
Yes. I've been around successful and contributing members of society that smoke pot every day all day and I'm surprised they can handle so many responsibilities.
Have YOU ever been around people that smoke weed all day? They're way more stable than people who drink just half the day!
depends a lot on the person. its the drug-person-environment relationship. not just the drug. when i was kid i was shocked to find out my parents high functioning lawyer couple (with 2 kids) friends did coke a few times a year. how did they stop from wrecking their lives? why didn't they loose everything? wasn't it instantly addictive? that's what the TV in the 80s told me.
i personally don't benefit from weed use. however i have known very smart productive people that smoked weed habitually for decades. held a job. no major life issues. they did not realize they were supposed to go psychotic i guess.
Yep, my husband of almost 50 yrs, still working (by choice, not necessity) 40 hrs a week at age 70.
Our brains aren't fully developed until the age of 25. Smoking pot as a teen probably interferes with that development. Alex isn't "going off the deep end", he's on point.
This is as bad and thin as saying video games caused it. Did this kid also listen to loud music and like anime? Must be all those things too
Did you read his article? I mean before you spouted off?
Yes it was a lovely plug for his book.
I believe video games have a lot to do with it. Dehumanizes life!!!! The culture has degraded by accepting these violent games for kids!
Hey lady, Jack Thompson isn’t relevant anymore. Give it a rest.
I don't care about Thompson. It's a point of view that I think is relevant, Try this https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2003/10/anderson
“ Media violence is only one of many factors that contribute to societal violence and is certainly not the most important one. Media violence researchers have repeatedly noted this.”
Seems to me we should be focusing on broken families and bad parenting in this case… as well as possible drug use. Not sure why you brought up video games, seems you have an axe to grind
Absolutely right. But no axe to grind
What do you feel about abortion? Does that dehumanize life also?
https://www.startribune.com/texas-gunman-was-bullied-as-a-child-grew-increasingly-violent-friends-say/600176290/)
My 20 year on the way home from Ole Miss two weeks ago talked to me about social media, instant gratification and his concern for the 6 and 9 step siblings he about to get. I could go on but this article was just sent to the steps mom-thank you for that. We got a huge issue now: mental health, social media, government lock down BS, our kids need help. This is not politics.
https://brownstone.org/articles/school-closings-and-violent-youth-a-potential-link/
Great article. TPTB have damaged a generation of kids.
Well Bob, let’s hear your opinion on the cause.
Our kids are being taught to hate Americans, their neighbor, and that everyone else is to blame for their problems. One of the most basic things you do to brain wash a soldier is dehumanize the enemy. When you start to dehumanize your neighbor, what do you expect?
Bob, i support the comment and agree with you. Kudos for the response. I will add, the family breakdown is not doing anyone any favors nor is the criticism of believe in God.
It's not only the effects of dehumanization, it's the devaluing of life. Here I point to the approximately ~60 million dead babies since Roe. When we lose all concept of the sanctity of life, bad shit happens.
True, but you obviously haven't spoken with anyone that had bad reactions to mj. It's a real thing, scary, and very sad. Doesn't affect everyone, but I know personally two people that didn't think it affected them, but man oh man, we all just shake our heads, it's too late now. Do your own research before making a hard stand.
Does being in a relationship to one count?
Was that person affected by their continued use of mj? My point is that some people are very adversely affected.
Yeah. I had many friends that did fine while high. But i know one that let it consume them and it got worse. The sad thing is we got along better when the other half was free. And if you have something going on behind the scenes that made you a tad unstable and you add to it?
Garbage in garbage out
yet a huge push by the left to legalize weed and more nationwide. it's almost as though everything the left and those in permanent government do is harmful to the fabric of a peaceful and functioning society.
Anything the left can do to foster a permanent underclass dependent on the government is a win for them.
Weed also reduces cognitive function in addition to the relevant rate of psychosis. So the purpose of the left here is the same as open boarders. Votes for Marxist.
they'll do anything for money!
Yea - we see how well legal alcohol has worked out...
You’re right, it was much better under prohibition. Bring on Al Capone 2.0, sounds great
Great post as usual, Alex.
marijuana is not a huge cause of violence unless it is laced or taken in combination with other drugs. Most likely your study did not test for 5g, or vaccine injury radiation poisoning. data is often faked to portray the desired I have been told by insiders in the pharma manufacturers. I smoked grass in my younger days but out grew it man years ago.
I dont have anything against pot, I smoked it in the 80s when it was pure plant(I think). It seems nowadays that there might be a little more than just plant.
Today's pot has been modified through selective breeding to have 150 times as much THC as our old "homegrown".
And now we legalize it. Unreal. Alcohol is still alcohol. But weed is stronger than ever
I guess it depends on your definition of huge. It causes plenty. Plenty of ER studies have shown the correlation with psychosis and violence. I know, "correlation doesn't prove causation". Just keep telling yourself that.
Seems to me all my stoner friends in high school were always paranoid when high, anecdotal?
I was. totally paranoid. never liked it, never used it after the age of 13...Why do we always assume every thinks or responds the same? to LOTS of things.
nope it does cause some paranoia for sure. but the correlation here is a huge stretch
Not when 40 years of medical science says otherwise
It doesn't.
Thank you for your insightful scientific evaluation of this issue 😊
I agree with Alex due to firsthand experience. Started smoking pot in junior high and through most of high school. Went from being a straight A student to barely graduating. It not only made me paranoid and later on depressed, it also affected my memory and abstract thinking. I am convinced that weed permanently diminished my short term memory because I struggled in college and struggle to this day (I’m in my fifties). I also had aspirations of being a drug dealer and bad ass criminal while partaking this “harmless” wonder drug. Thank god my dad set me straight all those years ago. It does affect your perception and judgement and young people should stay away from it. I regret ever smoking it.
Margaret Trudeau, hippie-dippy stoner, Club 54 flasher, and mother of Canada's total idiot Prime Minister, is known to have said in her older and wiser years that basically every time she smoked up she had an attack of psychosis. Her drug use explains a lot of sad episodes in her life -- and we who live in Canada think it explains how and why she gave birth to such an empty-headed eldest child.
She was probably high when she hooked up with Fidel to produce her effete, Satanic spawn.
I'm all-American but I married Canada, and have lived here for about 50 years. Have seen a lot of Canuck politicians come and go -- most of them outstanding mediocrities, though the French ones can be entertaining. Trudeau is not one of those. There are a lot of people who think his ding-bat Mom was schtupping Castro, but I don't know. I look at him and see both of his parents in his face. I think we'll have to wait until he gets a bit older to see which old Commie he resembles more. Lord knows he did not inherit his father's political skills, or clever way with words -- though Trudeau père was certainly a disdainful ideologue and an elitist street-fighter. Pierre invoked the War Measures Act and put tanks on the streets, but he was countering a real insurrection which involved bombs and a murdered politician found in the trunk of a car. Justine invoked the (newly re-christened) Emergencies Act when a bunch of truckers were line-dancing in the streets of Ottawa and honking their horns, because Junior was determined to destroy the economy. (Still is.) Justine doesn't have the charisma or brains of either of his putative fathers. So the jury's still out on that question.
Alex. You are very brave bringing up this subject. Where I live in Washington state, saying anything negative about marijuana gets you in lots of trouble. But the fact is there are some very troubling issues related to this drug that many here call medicine. When I walk down some streets in Seattle, I am in a cloud of pot smoke for blocks. So everyone i come across should be calm and relaxed, right? Well no, everyone is shuffling around with their pants around ankles or screaming at the sky. Did pot do this to them? We won't know until we look closely at the situation. And you have already started to- so thank you for that. Keep at it even though it is very unpopular at the moment.
The use of cannabis or the veritable army of pharmaceutical drugs is a symptom of a larger issue: the complete disintegration of the societal structures that reward good behavior and discourage bad behavior. We live in upside down world, run by an idiocracy that pretends that the sky is green and that there is no black & white, no good or evil and anything goes. No one needs a purpose -- everyone just needs their range of the moment desires & whims instantly rewarded. The collapse of thinking and the use of reason has been ongoing for 7 decades. Our fake largesse, created not by hard work, but by grift & con, is coming to an end. All of the demons are going to come out of the closet and many of them will be addled by drugs. But that won't be the reason they seek to spread death & destruction -- it's what they have been spoon-fed by our sick society from birth.
Doesn’t this kind of melodrama ever get exhausting?
“Cannabis causes psychosis, and psychosis causes violence.” Cannabis CAN cause psychosis and psychosis CAN cause violence. There are a lot of people who like weed and don’t have a problem with it, but there are some like my brother where marijuana use in teen years definitely contributed to him developing schizophrenia at age 20. Don’t paint this with a large brush, it alienates so many people and the whole point is to make people aware it CAN be dangerous to a minority of users. You just don’t know who it will negatively affect just like you don’t know who will turn into an alcoholic. But the answer isn’t prohibition, it’s education. Your book is essential in doing that. And it’s illuminating (and kind of funny) to see the potheads get their hackles up when you suggest the harm.
alex: i have found a lot of research that marijuana correlates to psychosis & communities that legalize it see large increases in violent crimes
weirdo stoners: I SMOKE WEED EVERYDAY AND I HAVE NEVER KILLED ANYBODY AND NOBODY ELSE HAS AND IT'S ALL LIES
the difference is it doesn't matter to alex one way or the other if marijuana is helpful or harmful
i mean, you know, before he wrote the book at least
but i'm just going to posit that some here are completely discounting the fact that marijuana played any part in this shooting as a way to absolve themselves from any culpability associated to their own advocacy
great metaphor since the freedom to get diabetes is a great comparison to the freedom to toke yourself into a psychosis & shoot up a school
we should definitely keep both to a minimum as responsible citizens
How disingenuous
well, more like making a bad metaphor worse in an attempt to show how treacherous this can be
"we should eliminate alcohol first" is pretty common on this page
it is a bigger problem, yet essentially unrelated
how many alcoholics could reasonably trace their psychosis or any motivation for a mass shooting to alcohol primarily?
there are a lot of problems related to alcohol like drunk driving & domestic abuse, but mass shootings aren't famously high on the list, so it's a better metaphor but not a perfect one
even comparing marijuana from 30 years ago with the fentanyl-laced substances on the streets today is a poor analogy
i respect this viewpoint
there is a cost to freedom.
my original comment was really for the people who could not admit to themselves that there was a teeny, tiny possibility that marijuana played a part in this
Sadly I have seen this in my own family. My brother in law has been smoking for decades. He is on antianxiety meds now and has my sister track his location because he has gotten so paranoid. His paranoia and anger has gotten worse the more heavily and longer he uses...now he has isolated his family from everyone. I know this doesn't happen to every user but just like alcohol it can make some go off the deep end.
My nephew too Katy
Because of the hybridization process, most of the weed now is so strong it will make your teeth chatter and induce incredible anxiety and paranoia. This isn't your father's 1975 Acapulco Gold anymore.
True.
BREAKING: Shunned (and pretty dang good) journalists conflates "fucked up person that uses pot" for "the pot made them do it"
Whew…at least it wasn’t the Twinkie again!
Maybe instead of getting rid of the 2nd amendment, we should focus on drugs?
Pretty sure that ATF 4473 asks if you’re a habitual drug user.
Yes but most drug users will lie about their drug use unless they're trying to get drugs.
I made this point years ago. Pot rage is real. If you know any chronic daily smoker who has smoked for ten or more years they are very angry. Not so much when they’re high. Or rather they are when they’re high but it is muted. It really comes out when they’re not high. It almost always is aimed at society. It’s aimed at some sort of amorphous thing that runs things. People laughed at me when I used to say ‘pot rage is real’. But I would question the person and ask if they knew anyone who smoked daily and had for a long time. And were they really angry about large social ideas. And were they actually quite angry people who appeared not. Almost everyone admitted they did know people exactly like that. I think it crosses into the brain and inflamed brain tissue. I’m not sure a gummy would have the same effect.
The destruction of America by the Left is intentional.
Legalized pot is part of that destruction.
They know the truth, but the more stoned you are, the more your government can hurt you.
I know a number of 60+ age professionals who lite up every day when they get home, their lives seem like a hamster wheel, they can't wait to get that hit so they can relax. It is an addiction, just like I struggle with drinking 1/2 a bottle of wine most nights and it usually ends up being 1+ bottles. It is an addiction with consequences period.
It's going south in Canada too since Fidel Jr. legalized this poison. The left loves it... it creates unthinking, dependent zombies.
Soma (Brave New World). Huxley and Orwell were uncannily prescient, unfortunately.
Alex, why is it not possible that people with neurological issues use cannabis to self medicate rather than the idea that they are perfectly fine and then develop neurological problems from taking cannabis?
Please read Alex's book. He addresses this and provides strong evidence that cannabis causes the problem. The claim that he ignores correlation vs causation is completely inaccurate.
None of the other things you are wrong about make you look as stupid and stubborn as this does. 😬
That's been the comeback I've heard from stoners for the last 40 years. Still holds no water.
I dated a man for nine years who admitted that if he hadn't been beholden to marijuana in his younger years he would have made something more of his life~~he said it made him apathetic and unmotivated. In high school (late 1970s) I remember trying to have conversations with my dear pot-smoking friends with their red eyes and the lack of being able to engage in even the smallest of small talk.
And now my best friend (a woman, 52 years old) is hooked on Adderall...she wanted to take it to lose weight...he doctor willingly gave it to her (she told him she had ADHD) and now she also drinks wine combined with a gummy every night. Recently she told me she has lost all sense of "care" for anything that happens to her and those she loves which is very much out of character for her.
Nation of zombies?? Add to that the effects from the jibby jab? Add to that the addiction of TikTok and porn and who knows what else?
This is how they want us. Stupid and numb and compliant. And psychotic if we have the right combination of life events. Yay, us!
My old college boyfriend couldn’t survive without a bong hit first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. And that doesn’t include his smoking throughout the rest of the day. He’s now 60 and is still hooked. Lives in FL but gets it “underground” from his pothead buddies. The man can barely string two sentences together and it takes serious effort. I’m a 52 year Colorado native and it was a sad day when legalization passed here. We attracted all the dirtbags from around the country. It’s lovely to drive into town and see folks in the car next to you smoking it up. Part of what has made Denver now such a dump.
It's zombie life. I don't care what anyone says...that is what it's like. "life is horrible so let's numb it out and make it bearable"
Depressed people smoke pot to feel better. Depression harms motivation and feelings of connection. Why would you think the pot is causal?
When you first start smoking the memory problems are worse. Now I can do advanced math, physics and programming while stoned because I am used to the effects. I get short term amnesia if I smoke a lot but it has limited impact on math and programming probably because they are step by step and you write down each step as you do it so you don't lose track. Pot definitely helps with visualizing problems.
Yeah who cares about a little amnesia! Nothing hurting your brain there at all!
Whew! A LOT of protesting too much in the comments. Maybe try to comment when you aren't 😵💫
They can't do anything but squeal like stuck pigs when confronted with all the evidence that THC is destructive.
I understand all the shooters ate food too. And had feet. I think we are on to something.
Wow, what a good argument... :(
Plus women are cannabis users, & aren’t…..
Ehh I'd trust marijuana before I'd trust ssri's.... And I'm a psych nurse. Parents just wanna throw pills at kids and not discipline them. Kids growing up without God is bad news too, no empathy for others. Also the parkland shooters mother used illegal drugs when he was in utero
and there's Geo Floyd meth'd up and fentanyl and no telling what else and the whole ordeal blamed on everyone but him or his drug use. When you convince people that they are victims,, this is how they act. No integrity, no purpose, no character, no regard for other humans. It is called NARCISSISM and it is why satan got kicked out of heaven. And the most beautiful example of narcissism is Beto O'Roarke disrupting the Govenor during a news briefing...100% arrogant SOB. And may he continue to self destruct.
I go with the first autopsy on Floyd...dude died from an overdose.
So Alex, I'm confused. Did the guns make them smoke weed?
When I grew up firearms were commonplace. Just as much as today. Perhaps not as refined, but they still had plenty of lethality. Yet somehow we managed not to shoot each other. It's not the guns. If Ramos didn't have guns he'd have waited for recess and run them over with his truck.
Go look at the frequency of mass murder events in Australia after their ban. They didn't go down, they just changed weapons (sometimes, sometimes they just used illegal firearms).
It's a pointless hypothetical. With 400 million firearms in the US, they aren't going away even if enough of us wanted them to. Also, you need to consider how many additional deaths there would be if people did not have firearms available for self-defense... The Obama administration CDC has studied the use of firearms in the US in the interest of public health. They report that firearms are used for self defense between 500,000 and 3 millions times each year. That is what 2A means, in part, when "translated" to real world situations. If you want to stop illegal gun violence, then start enforcing the law instead of defunding the police and releasing criminals from prison.
Two quotes from the report which you may find of particular interest:
“Self-defense can be an important crime deterrent,”
“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,”
*Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence, 2013
Alex Berenson's fear of plants is also psychosis. Other than that, keep up the good work.
Not gonna lie, I can agree to disagree on cannabis but I really disagree with you on this one lol. Progressives do love to legalize drugs. And have a lot of crazy ideas I disagree with. I'm surely biased (I love cannabis) but there surely are a lot worse drugs that are legal on the market.
Knowledge is power my friend. Just cuz it hasn't affected you, doesn't mean it won't, or doesn't affect others. I tell my high schoolers to do their own research, go in with eyes wide open.
Did i say that? lol. I practice the golden rule. I'm not out here telling people to smoke weed or force feeding them edibles. I Have found cannabis to be profoundly improve my life. but to each their own.
When you're talking about cannabis but leaving out the effects of SSRI's prescribed by drug pushers with better lobbyists you sound like the type of propagandists you take issue with behind the plandemic. Lots of studies about the effect of those causing murderous psychosis. Nice, easy target to aim for cannibis. When the root of much more evil lies in the hands of the very same drug companies pushing dangerous, harmful experimental drugs into the world's population with evil lies and propaganda. Can you comprehend that Big Pharma is the biggest evil we face even beyond "vaccines"?
Turned many a mentally ill mind into homicidal youth. I was in Colorado's politically connected world when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a murderous rampage at Columbine. The investigation came up with all of the instances of SSRI over-prescribing to youth resulting in mass murder. Knew members of the investigating committee. Furious that the evidence of Big Pharma's fingerprints all over the tragedies was covered up...Big Pharma $$ and power more important that public safety. Just like they're doing today with dangerous, unsafe and ineffective experimental "vaccines." Same baddies. But you blame marijuana? Wow. Cognitive dissonance much?
https://web.archive.org/web/20070929124956/https://www.fda.gov/CDER/DRUG/antidepressants/PI_template.pdf#search=%22fda.gov%20suicide%20ssri%22/2006/paroxetineDHCPMay06.pdf
Big Pharma is destroying our society.
Don't be stupid. SSRI use is about as bad as using weed. So your reasoning is flawed. They're both horrible and both should be outlawed.
Because prohibition has worked so well, right?
Got to disagree with you - I have benefitted greatly over 30 years taking an SSRI for depression/anxiety. I'm sure that is the case with millions of people as well. I do not deny that there are problems with them for some people in some cases. I'm sure you have some case to counter-point my experience, but I cannot agree with your broad statement.
I'll concede that there could be a big difference in the risks for adults vs. children on SSRI's. Just like with marijuana. Young, developing brains with lots of neural pathways being wired and firing up that encounters chemical disrupters I suspect have a greater risk of being damaged in the empathy zones of the brain than in adult brains. Speculation, but have seen others with more credentials than I offering that reasoning which resonates with my understanding.
Seems like it does. I have a relative who has been smoking for decades and while there is definitely neurosis involved, they’ve had two psychotic episodes that required hospitalization in roughly ten years
Wow, how people lose their shit when discussion of the harmful effects of pot comes up. It is really sad, because I know first-hand how pot can cause severe psychosis. I would not wish that on anyone. It may be that 99% of people are just fine smoking weed all day long. But there's a percentage who simply cannot. I think of it like peanut butter. Perfectly harmless and healthy except when it's not.
Can cause... The biggest problem with most of the comments on here, including Alexs' lies in math.
Numbers do not lie. The sheer number of daily smokers in this country is so large that if it were even remotely true that weed causes psychosis the US would experience multiple psychotic violent episodes per day. You have destroyed your own argument because you are biased and fail to use basic fundamental logic.
Look at the number of people commenting here who are saying they smoke tons and are just fine, then they go on to argue badly, and there's meanness in it too. No, they're not fine and the numbers I'm seeing tell me that 99% being "fine" is way too generous. I've never met any set of smokers in my life where that could be true. There's supposed to be some vast pool of smokers who are all totally fine, and I've never run into a sample of them all in one place? I doubt it.
See my response above. Your hyperbole is no argument against math, dude.
RAK, I think you are giving selective attention to cases that fit your hypothesis in terms of who is meaner or who argues worse. But have you considered that you are less likely to even know that successful smokers ARE cannabis users? As you can see here, there is a lot of discrimination against smokers, so people are less likely to volunteer that they smoke. So you only know about the ones who lead disordered lives that make their status obvious.
Trying to understand why people have such a different experience than me, I suggest that people are blaming pot for the results of other drugs. What people attribute to pot sounds like meth to me. It is easier to confess to pot use than harder drugs. Less stigma. I think concerned families and onlookers don't know what people are really on and the people involved are hesitant to tell them.
Horse shit, Alex. Those guys were self-medicating with anything they could find. It just so happens that pot is one of the easiest drugs to get ahold of. They were psychotic from the day they were born. t's just that everyone is afraid to say something, even professionals. If the evaluator who did a psych work up on the Buffalo shooter had been competent, s/he'd have seen the signs right then and there.
That’s not true. Psychotic episodes require some sort of supportive stimuli. Perhaps 1/3 of the population is capable of having a bipolar to the point of psychosis episode. Just as 1/3 likely could become addicted.
I was using the term in a broad sense. They are wired wrong. These mass shooters have shown signs ever since they were little. People missed/didn't want to see them. You CANNOT tell me that teachers haven't talked about those kids in the teachers' lounge or haven't gone to the school social worker and said "Something's off" with so-and-so. You KNOW when a kid is off. We can all see Biden is off. It's an innate ability in all animals, humans included, to keep the species/community safe. On the same token, those same people tend to self-medicate with anything they can find. I know pot production has changed over the years with some strains causing psychotic problems in certain people but there are also strains that can cause paranoia OR calm people down. Pot is not a one-size-fits-all but most people are normal. These shooters, which is what Alex's piece was about, are a whole 'nuther breed.
What happens in a permissive society that rejects God, excuses soft crime and rude behavior while promoting alcohol and pot use, promotes gender confusion, led by leaders who hate this country and its founding, continually call us racists, divide us into categories, pitting one group against another? Surprise!!! Surprise!!! More serious crime! We have a serious culture problem; that's the root cause!
Alex, nobody writing today has your cred on this issue. Readers should also turn to Peter Hitchens’s The War we never Fought. What is the root cause of pervasive psychosis among throwaway children steeped in media ?
God Alex, you have so much good to offer. Why you choose this empty cause is just unfathomable.... I grew up with 50 years of cannabis. You are lost on this one..
Question: I have no experience with it, no horse in the race, but from my vantage point cannabis seems a better alternative for a lot of things than big-pharma pharmaceuticals... is this not the case?
Please note I know nothing, and have never partaken. But from people I know and trust, whom use it for a specific reason, not a hobby or lifestyle choice, it seems a net benefit over the “acceptable” alternatives.
I tried it for pain... and I feel for you and your friend. Everyone reacts to medicines or drugs differently. Can we please just accept that? We are still in the 21st century clinging on to the delusion that EVERYONE is the SAME and will REACT the same. It is just not true.You can pump me full of penicillen and I will die of sepsis. Humans are INDIVIDUALS...different blood types, different metabolisms, etc.
In the future, if the human race lives that long, people will look back and think ¨how stupid these people were to not realize that no one reacts the same to the same things::...
I love you Alex I really do. I posted something on your earlier article referring to SSRIs causing this kind of carnage but later I wondered if it was reefer madness. Loco weed. Thank you for posting this.
Yep. All drugs and alcohol are bad. Interesting how people so quickly get defensive over this truth. Cannabis is not harmless. I can tell you by watching people I love become incapable of adulting and also becoming paranoid. I wonder why so many people are willing to be unemployed by COVID mandates and come closer and closer to the WEF prescribed lifestyle of owning nothing, eating no meat, and being happy about it.. Oh yeah, all that dope smoking renders one unmotivated. Folks, you may think it's not as bad as alcohol, but it really is. All these chemicals feel good for a time. All of them have negative consequences, especially with regular use.
Here's a thought: perhaps the end goal of the WEF/technocrats is to disarm us. If true, then increasing drug use via legalization (and increasing SSRI use via Pharma/prescription - similar to fentanyl) would just be the mechanism for provoking a whole lot of violence, and then they could proclaim that the "fix" is forced national disarmament.
People will still die from being deliberately run over by cars, but - cars don't scare the WEF/technocrats. Guns do.
Watch out Mr. Berenson, the pot lobby is gonna come after you!
You know, the recreational users I get, I’m not gonna be a hypocrite, I had a past but it’s long gone.
When I was in college I never respected the daily smokers who just were in school for a free ride, usually mommy and daddy paid for it.
No, the chronic daily users, they are addicts, they may not have the consequences of heroin or cocaine, but they’re not that far behind.
Apathy, cognitive disruptions, sometimes subtle medical issues that are just smoldering, and then the psycho-social struggles with those who aren’t gleefully willingly embracing this daily cannabis bullshit, these people are trouble.
Colorado continues to hide its consequences, and wait for the usual suspects to come here and tell us “you are the scumbags, pot is great, and if you don’t like it, get the fuck out of America!”
These people are morons, real life Cheech and Chong…
Just reading a lot of these comments reminds me of the pro-vaxxers who will argue against blatant proof of vaccine injury and give their children the jab anyway.
if you have nothing to hide, you'll not have to defend
I don't doubt you one bit on this, Alex, and I know much of that goes back several years. However, I would also add into the puzzle the tremendous stress, isolation, forced mask wearing and shutdowns we've experienced for over two years - not to mention the hatred and division amply fomented by the Democratic Party and the Media.
https://brownstone.org/articles/school-closings-and-violent-youth-a-potential-link/
Kern - I've only skimmed the article but it seems well written and it definitely confirms my own suggestion. Obviously, I'm not the only one putting 2 and 2 together on this one. THANK YOU for the article!
A friend of mine, working professional, started using a lot of marijuana and ended up hallucinating that she was gonna marry a famous billionaire. Her brother was already diagnosed with schizophrenia. She ended up voluntarily in an institution for a month. Probably pushed her over the edge. Maybe some people can’t handle their pot. My ex sister in law had a similar experience. Left her kid and husband to live on the streets waiting for a dead celebrity to marry her.